Change and Catharsis
by Haleine Delail
Summary: When the Twelfth Doctor looks up an old friend, new and old "relationship" issues come to the table - finally, frank discussion is possible, after all these years! But, talking about it in this time and place leaves him strangely hollow. To achieve closure, he'll have to break a few rules... but he'll be careful. As always. (Psst... it's really a Ten/Martha ship fic.)
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, friends! I think this is going to be a two- or three-part story, that departs a little from my norm. For starters, it involves the Twelfth Doctor and a thirtysomething Martha Jones!**

 **But, I don't want you to** **be fooled! no matter how science-fiction-y, and Twelfth Doctor-y it seems at first, it's really just a Ten/Martha ship fic. That's kinda how I roll. :-)**

 **But in the meantime, there's some fun interplay between slightly mismatched Doctor and Companion, which is always interesting, no?**

 **My goal was for there to be meaningful, frank discussion between the Twelfth Doctor and Martha, but no flirtation, and no particular desire for one another, at this point in their lives. I don't want the Doctor to seem too vain or adolescent here... though we all have our flaws...**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

PART 1

That Saturday during Earth's mid-summer of 2017 was not the first time the Doctor had been involved in a crashed bus full of humans… on a planet that was not Earth. They'd been fairly lucky back then, on San Helios, that the bus's metal framing had protected them all from burning up when they'd gone through the portal.

But, today _was_ the first time he'd been involved in a crashed bus full of humans, on a planet that was not Earth… when there were injuries. Myriad injuries, as a matter of fact.

He'd been in Berlin, investigating several bus disappearances, and had basically set up the TARDIS at a stake-out point on a non-descript bridge over the river Spree. It was a spot where, in the past month, three buses had gone over, into the drink, and then when emergency crews had arrived, no part of the vehicle, nor its passengers, was anywhere to be found. In the river, nor anywhere else.

He watched on his monitor for a few days, and set an alarm to notify him if a bus approached. And so, he was standing at the console, watching in real-time, eating Chinese food, when a bus had, for no apparent reason, careened into the mid-motorway partition. This caused the bus to flip over inexplicably (for the velocity with which it was moving, the Doctor felt that the flips were entirely uncalled-for), and then fall over the bridge into the Spree.

He cursed, and put his Chinese food down on the counter opposite. He did not wait for emergency crews to arrive and confirm that no bus was in the river below the bridge. He simply set the TARDIS' controls to follow it.

"Here goes nothing," he said.

With that, the TARDIS rose above the river, and then crashed into it, in the middle of the swirling wake, where the bus had disappeared.

But the TARDIS just splashed into the river. A cursory glance around with the vessel's instruments told him that the bus was nowhere, however.

"Where are you, eh?" he asked.

He had been sure that he'd find himself and the TARDIS falling through a portal or a breach or a rift of some sort…

He set the TARDIS back down in a semi-remote spot near the river bank. Now that people were gathering on the bridge, to gawk at the accident, he didn't want to draw attention to himself or his blue box. He re-watched the footage he'd managed to capture of the crash…

"Ahhh! Ah-ha," he growled, with vindication. "It's the partition!"

He slowed it down to one-quarter speed, and watched the incident a third time. One of the concrete barriers between two lanes of traffic on the bridge gave way in a manner that looked decidedly unnatural. He recognised it as a fairly sophisticated propulsion device, originating, most definitely, in a different part of the universe.

Though, the Doctor reasoned, from the evidence, that the device didn't just _propel._ It also likely _attracted_ the bus to it somehow, causing the bus to run into it, which triggered both the opening of the portal, as well as the propulsion effect. Like flicking a piece of rubbish off the table and into a bin.

He waited for the police to come and clear the bridge of spectators, in anticipation of emergency crews.

Once the way was open, he scared the living daylights out of the coppers, by swooping the TARDIS down and bashing it into the partition. When he did that, the partition did exactly what it was supposed to do: flicked him into the river, and through some kind of gateway…

The TARDIS' instruments notified him that they were, in fact, now in a different galaxy altogether.

"Circulina," he whispered to no-one in particular. "Oh, this is going to be bad."

This planet, he knew, was filled with carnivorous, intelligent, ruthless beasts who likely had set up the trap in Berlin on the motorway somehow to attract buses, flip them into the river and through a wormhole of some sort. This would be seen as a method of hunting and/or trapping, and humans would be seen as a culinary delicacy.

He stepped out of the TARDIS into a heavily greened-in area, a forest of sorts, and found the bus he'd seen in Berlin, badly bashed-in, and filled with screaming, terrified people. Around them, there were three other wrecked buses, though they were empty, and there were no signs of humans in them. He shivered to think of what had probably happened to them, and ploughed forward, onto the bus. His intention was to get everyone into the TARDIS, and out of there.

But chaos won out. The panic inside the vehicle was out of control.

The first thing he saw, when he ducked through the dilapidated doorway was a bus driver, bleeding profusely from the head, lying, blocking the doorway. He checked the man's pulse, and discovered that he was alive, but just barely.

To his left, there was a woman, also bleeding about the head, but she was conscious, upright, and crying. A child with an arm broken so badly, she seemed to have two elbows. She was screaming in pain, and her father, sitting next to her was unconscious, and bleeding as well. Two others were trapped in the back, underneath a piece of metal that had bent inwards upon impact at some point… he couldn't tell if they were dead or alive.

The Doctor quickly ascertained that there were thirteen people on this bus, and he only saw two up, moving about, coherent enough to help. One was a man, about thirty years old, seeming only to have a cut on his arm. The other was a woman, about fifty, who seemed rattled, but miraculously uninjured.

He ploughed down the aisle, and approached them, addressed them both. "Is either one of you a medic? Please tell me _one of you_ is a medic!"

"No," the man answered, totally panicked. "I'm an accountant! I have no idea what to do! What do I do?"

"I work in data analysis," the woman said with fear, but more calm. Then she pointed to someone half-pinned under a row of seats. "That man over there, the one with the purple tie, he's a doctor, but he's in no shape to do anything helpful."

The Doctor approached the man with the purple tie. "Hey, mate, are you conscious?"

"Yeah," the man groaned. "Pretty sure my leg is broken."

"Okay," the Doctor said. "Don't move."

He moved back down the aisle toward the door.

"Wait! Who are you?" the uninjured man called out.

"I'm the Doctor!"

"You're a doctor? Well… don't leave us! Where are you going? Please don't go!"

"I'll be back! I can't do this alone… I'm going to get help!"

* * *

Ordinarily, these days, when he needed backup, Clara Oswald was his go-to gal. She didn't want to "travel" with him just now, as she was so involved in her career and her new relationship, but when he needed her, she was usually there. Often with her P.E. teacher boyfriend in-tow.

But in this situation, what the hell could a plucky English teacher do? Or a plucky P.E. teacher?

"No, no, not Clara," the Doctor muttered to himself, running through the TARDIS' door.

One of the great things about being _him_ , he realised, was that picking up companions and loyal friends along the way afforded him a great abundance of _different sorts_ of people to choose from, in a crisis. Many of them were lost to him forever, for whatever reason…

But the one person he needed now, was _not_ lost.

He hoped to God that her last-known phone number was still relevant. In the early twenty-first century, didn't people try to retain the same mobile number for as long as possible? The phone would change – iPhone 5, 6, 7, 89, 272… but the number was usually reliable. Hopefully.

He used the console's phone to ring her.

"Doctor," she said cautiously as she answered, having likely recognised the TARDIS' identification signature on her display.

"Hello, Martha Jones," he said. "Been quite a while since I've heard your voice. Quite a while, indeed."

There was a pause. "I'm sorry, who's this?"

His stomach turned. _Oh, that's right._

"Martha, it's me."

"It's you?" she asked.

"It's the Doctor."

"The Doctor?

"Yes. I swear, it's me."

"Oh. Wow," she breathed. "You've… changed, then."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Well, I guess the day had to come…"

"Martha, I don't have time to talk about this at the moment. I really, truly, seriously need your help."

"Er… yeah, of course. What's going on?"

"Tell me where you are, I'm coming to get you right now. Prepare a full medical kit."

"For humans?"

"Yes, for humans. Thirteen of them. A bus crash. A bad one."

"Ouch, okay. Why not call emergency services?"

"The bus fell through a portal. It's on the planet Circulina."

"Oh, of course it is. I guess you're still the Doctor."

"Indeed I am."

"Right, then. Your… transport. It's still the same, yeah?" she asked, with a gulp.

"Yes. You'll hear it in less than two minutes."

Martha gave her location nervously to the Doctor, and then cut off the call.

* * *

Dr. Martha Jones pulled a bulky satchel from a cabinet and heaved it up onto her examination table. It was an old-fashioned medical bag, packed for emergencies, but the instruments inside were not old-fashioned. They were basically untouched, and still sealed in their sterile plastic bags. She shed her white coat and hung it on the hook beside the door. She picked up the satchel, and headed down the hall. She let herself into her closest colleague's examination room, and extracted another medical bag from a cabinet.

The Doctor (if that was, indeed, who had called) had said that there were about fifteen people injured, and she reckoned they might need more than just these two kits, but… this was all she could carry. She wondered why the Doctor himself did not have provisions.

She took the two bags and headed down the hall to the waiting area at the front of the empty clinic, to wait for her "ride." But for a few moments, she just stood there, inside the door with the two satchels, thinking.

The stranger's voice that had come through the phone had shocked her more than she had let on (she hoped, anyway), and now that she was about to see him in a stranger's body, she couldn't help but re-hash her history with him.

When they'd met, ten years ago, she'd been only twenty-three years old. She was wise, in her way, at that time, but in other ways, she was a complete idiot. Especially when it came down to love.

Ah, love.

She'd spent a year, travelling with him, helplessly, hopelessly, in it up to her neck.

It had been unavoidable, she thought, given her state of mind at the time, and circumstances. He had been wickedly handsome, quirky, _unfathomably_ intelligent, athletic, funny… a man of action, a man of the universe. That combination of traits (and some esoteric qualities that she could never quite pin down) had made her positively weak in the knees, for a solid year. At twenty-three, still girlishly idealistic, hormonal and untested in the matters of heartbreak, _of course_ she wanted him. _Of course_ it was an all-consuming, with-every-fibre-of-her-being kind of love, the kind that hurt, and left its mark on her.

In the years since, she'd come to wonder lots of things, including, what if it was merely an experiment to him? Had he somehow _chosen_ that body, that face, that personality, as a way of studying human fervour? It was not out of the realm of possibility…

But mostly, she wondered, how could a man as old as he, as experienced as he, as world-weary as he, not see the longing in her ridiculously young eyes, at every turn?

The answer, of course, was… he couldn't. He couldn't _not_ see it. Because, though it had seemed for a long while that he had no clue what she was feeling, it became clear, after a time, that he had a clue, just no interest. Then, she'd been forced to save the world and gain some goddamn perspective, and only after that, could she walk away from him.

Seeing him again, following those events… it had stung. She'd been briefly engaged to Tom Milligan (what a farce that had been), and worked with UNIT, and had run with the Doctor a couple of times during that period. But even then, it had hurt a bit. She was no longer quite so infatuated, but the pang of what once had been, it was sharp and bitter, if only for a few minutes, before the adrenaline kicked in, and they began chasing down Daleks and Sontarans.

The last time she'd seen him was about eight years ago, six weeks or so after she'd married Mickey, and the Doctor had said nothing. He had dispatched with a single Sontaran who, presumably, would have taken her and Mickey unawares. But then, he seemed to simply stare at them for a long while, before walking away without a word. The encounter had been awkward, not just because Mickey knew very well her history with the Doctor (and she knew his), but because it had felt wrapped up in destiny somehow. For months after that, she was preoccupied with it – the look on his face that day, how he'd known to come save them, why he'd just walked away. She wondered if he had been trying to communicate something to them, and if they should have pursued it further.

And after that, until today, her life had been devoid of Time Lords (except when he intervened on a global level, and she knew it was him… who else could have scared off the Atraxi?), TARDISes and most types of otherworldly drama.

It was probably only about thirty seconds later when she heard the groan of the TARDIS, and saw it, materialising across the small patch of grass in front of the clinic. Her heartbeat sped up. She assured herelf that in a few minutes, she'd be knee-deep in a crisis. There were people in trouble, and she had a job to do. She would have no time to dwell on the past, and that was a relief.

She pushed through the glass door, knowing it would lock behind her, and waited, holding her breath, for someone to emerge.

The man who stepped through the door was tall, as she remembered him, thin, as she remembered him… but that's where it ended. His hair was curly and completely grey, his face now much more worn and creased, befitting a man of some age. He no longer wore anything resembling the well-tailored pin-striped suit, to which he'd become so attached, back when she'd known him… today, he wore a black blazer, with a black hoodie underneath, and some sort of printed tee-shirt. On his feet, there were no whimsical trainers, but rather, a pair of quite serious, scuffed Doc Martens.

"Wow," she said, with a sad smile. "You are… so different."

He smiled kindly. "You look the same."

She scoffed. "Ten years older."

"No," he insisted, lightly. "You look the same. Still achingly beautiful."

She smiled more widely, now in disbelief. "Are you really… you? You're really the Doctor?"

He gestured to the TARDIS. "Who else would live in this thing?"

"Wow," she repeated. "Sorry, just…"

"That's all right. Want to know something that will mess with your head even more?"

She laughed. "Of course! Why wouldn't I?"

"Since you last saw me, I've changed twice."

"Twice?"

"Yeah… there was… a bow-tie."

"A bow-tie?"

"For a time. It was an affectation. Anyway… we shouldn't dawdle. Even _with_ a time machine, we're wasting precious minutes here," he said. He gestured through the door of the Police Box. "Let's go."

"Let's go?" she asked, stepping through the door. "Back in the day, you'd have said, _allons-y."_

"That was a catch-phrase," he told her, shutting the door. "I'm now _totally against_ catch-phrases. Especially French ones."

"Grumpy now, too," she commented, as he took her bags from her and set them to the side.

"Thank you," he said. "Most people just think I'm Scottish."

With that, he secured the door, and walked down the ramp, past her, toward the console. Only then did she properly look around.

"Holy…" she breathed, her mouth open.

"What? You knew it was bigger on the inside."

"Yeah, but… erm, can TARDISes regenerate too?"

"Yes," he said. "Sorry, I should've warned you. The whole interior has had a… makeover. Twice."

"Jesus."

"It's funny, her interior changes, but her exterior stays the same. Me, I'm the opposite," he chuckled.

"Funny," she said, absently, walking toward the console, and exploring with her eyes the familiar, yet completely foreign, TARDIS console room.

"Okay, let's just… go," he said, sensing immense discomfort, on her part.

He threw the vessel into gear, and it jostled them. She found that the movement of the TARDIS felt familiar, and she was still conditioned, after all these years, to grab on, when she felt that tug and heard that sound.

She took the opportunity to study the man at the controls, and look him over. He had _completely_ changed since she'd travelled with him. Or rather, the superficial aspects of the Doctor had… his look, and his home décor. She reckoned he probably lived the same, mad old life. She found it interesting that the superficial aspects of _her_ had changed little, while the inner-workings had done an about-face.

She hoped they'd have a chance to catch up later. There was so much she wanted to know.

But before she could fathom what she might say to him when given a proper chance, the TARDIS stopped, and the Doctor ran for the door. He opened it, and as before, gestured for her to walk through it.

She both chuckled, and cried a little, inwardly, at the way he ran. _Her_ Doctor used to do everything at a full sprint. This Doctor had a funny little waddle that passed for a jog, she supposed…

"We've landed two minutes after I left. Fabulous. We've still got a shot at helping these people, and getting them back to where they belong, before they get eaten," he said.

"Eaten?" she asked, stepping into the forest on Circulina, hearing screams coming from a nearby bus. With that word, and those sounds, she was suddenly immersed in the crisis along with the Doctor, and no longer thinking of the man in pin-stripes.

"Yes, eaten," he said, leaning back into the TARDIS, grabbing the two medical satchels she'd brought. He handed her one. "Thanks for bringing these. Saves me some time, trying to find mine. Haven't needed it since… well, since this most recent change. I currently have no idea where the TARDIS' infirmary is."

She might have laughed at this, had a switch not been flipped inside of her, throwing her doctorly instincts into hard focus, making everything else less important for the moment.

The two of them boarded the bus, recruited the two relatively uninjured passengers as makeshift medics, and set to work prioritizing the injuries. Martha began with the little girl with the broken arm. The Doctor began with the dying driver.

The man in the purple tie turned out to be fairly useful, once Martha had got some pain medication pumped into him, as he was then able to help with the categorising, and instructing, from where he sat.

In the end, the two men who had been crushed by a metal panel in the back of the bus, they were hopeless. They had probably died upon impact. But everyone else was at least temporarily stable, before any carnivorous beasts could find them in the forest.

But when they began to hear giant footsteps, the Doctor and Martha rallied them all, and they had to work together to get everyone into the TARDIS, and out of there.

And, as often happens when the Doctor is involved, people were unable to explain exactly what happened or who had saved them… but they were fine, and able to carry on from there, whatever that may mean. He delivered them all to a hospital back in Berlin, then called Kate Lethbridge-Stewart to do damage-control with the hospital's administration.

And, four hours after he had picked up Martha Jones in front of her clinic, the Doctor landed the TARDIS in the same spot, with thanks to his erstwhile, very clever, companion. The two of them silently reloaded the medical bags, and prepared to say goodbye, once more.

* * *

He stepped out of the TARDIS with her, carrying both satchels.

"Are you sure you don't want me to take you to your actual _home_?" he asked her. "It's Saturday. You've put in a good day's work."

She said, "No, it's fine. I have to return the instruments to the clinic, and sterilise them. Plus, my car is here."

He smiled softly and nodded. "Okay." Then he looked up at the small, clean white building, her place of work, and commented, "This is very nice."

"Thanks."

"Are you running the place?"

"Yes, it's my practise," she said. "I have associates."

He smiled big, this time, and told her, "Congratulations."

But then, the sign affixed to a brick post on the patch of green, caught his eye. _Francine Jones Memorial Oncology Clinic._

His face fell, and he gestured toward the sign. "I'm sorry."

She smiled sadly. "Thanks. It's all right."

"When?"

"Five years ago," she said. "Lung cancer. I had to give up chasing aliens so I could be with her. Opened this place with some of what she left me when she passed."

"Well, that's something, at least. How's your dad?"

"Remarried. Living in Florida, as of six months ago."

"Good, good. Tish? Leo?"

"Both married with kids."

He frowned. "You?"

"Want to come inside for a few minutes? Have a lousy cup of break-room tea?"

"How could I resist that?" he said, with a chuckle. "I'll help you sterilise and repack the kits."

She unlocked the door, and the Doctor hauled the satchels inside, and she instructed him straight down the hall, second-to-last door on the left. She turned on a few lights, and then joined him in the tiny room that housed a washing machine and dryer, a utility sink, a small cabinet, and an Autoclave machine, for sterilising medical instruments.

From the cabinet, Martha extracted a plastic tub, and an alcohol-based solution. She diluted the solution with water, then asked the Doctor if he wanted to scrub, then soak the instruments, or make tea.

He chose to scrub.

"Least I can do, for all your help today," he said.

He shrugged off his blazer, pushed up the sleeves of his hoodie, and set himself to work.

* * *

He found her, ten minutes later, in the break room. She was waiting with tea already steeping in novelty mugs, and a plate of a few different types of biscuits.

"How long do you like to soak them before putting them in the Autoclave?" he asked, entering, transferring his blazer to the back of a folding chair.

"Usually just fifteen minutes, but given what they've been through today, let's do a half-hour or so," she said. "How do you take your tea, these days?"

"Strong, black," he answered, sitting down at the table where she had laid out the refreshments.

"Okay. Me, I'm still white, with no sugar," she said, extracting a small carton of milk from a miniature refrigerator, and bringing it to the table. "Feel free to have one of these incredibly appetising, stale, broken Jammy Dodgers. I excavated them from that cabinet, there, just for you."

He smiled. "There was a time when I would have been all too happy to partake, in _any_ sort of Jammy Dodger," he told her. "As it is, I'll just stick with tea, thanks."

She nodded, and picked up a lemon biscuit from the plate, just as stale as anything else there. She bit into it, realising she hadn't eaten yet today.

"So I've brought you up to speed," she said.

"You have?" he asked, with a bitter look on his face, after burning his mouth on the tea.

"Now, how about you? What have you been up to?"

"That's quite the loaded question, Dr. Jones."

"Well, for starters, how long has it been?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "Maybe eight hundred years."

"Whoa," she said, exhaling hard, leaning back in her chair. "That's… mental."

"Some of it has been, yeah."

"I mean, it's almost so long a time, as to be meaningless for someone like me. And, weren't you, like, nine-hundred-and-four, or something like that, the last time I saw you? Now you're almost twice that old?"

"I spent a lot of time in a town called Christmas. _A lot_ of time," he told her.

"So, seriously, tell me stuff. What led to you regeneration, _twice_ since I last saw you?"

"Well, a day or two before the last time I saw you, when I stopped that Sontaran from killing you and Mickey…"

"And then cryptically walked away without a word?"

"Yeah, just before that, I'd been doused with a ridiculous amount of radiation," he said. "I could say it was the Master, but it wasn't. Speaking of whom… you should see _her_ now."

"Who?"

"The Master. Anyway, it was not the Roentgen kind of radiation, but the kind that can actually hurt me. Kill me. When you saw me, I was slowly dying, and I knew it. I was saying goodbye."

She nodded. She _had_ suspected that the event was fateful, in some way.

"And I regenerated just a few hours later, and then crash-landed in 1996. I met a seven-year-old girl named Amelia, and… well, because I was sometimes a bit rubbish at aiming the TARDIS, especially when she'd been damaged, I ran afoul of an older version of Amelia, who was quite cross with me for abandoning the younger version. Eventually, she got over it, and she and her fiancé-slash-husband travelled with me for a time. Of course, that was _after_ she tried shagging me, but that's neither here nor there."

Martha laughed. "So, you regenerated into yet another infernally magnetic character, eh?" Then she winked at him whimsically, and it made him a bit uncomfortable, but he couldn't put his finger on why.

"Well… sort of," he said, shifting in his chair, a bit. He took a long sip of his tea to cover his discomfort. "I thought so at the time. But not like when you knew me."

"I see," she said, sipping her tea, with something of a knowing smile.

"Amelia – Amy – and Rory were with me for a long time. A really long time. A couple hundred years."

"How is that possible? Were they human?"

"Yes, but, they wanted to have a normal life, so… I took them home, and picked them up whenever I needed them, and we'd have adventures. Sort of like I did with you, today. From their side of things, it was about ten years, but on my end… well."

"What happened to them?"

He stared into his mug, with a very forlorn smile. "They crossed the path of a Weeping Angel."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah."

"It trapped them in a time and place where I could not reach them. So, just like that, they were literally, _poof,_ gone. In a flash of heartbreak."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Doctor."

It still felt weird calling this man _Doctor._

"So, I thought I'd brood a bit more after that… got so bloody sick of _losing people_. I was still sort of grinding on Donna, and you, and Rose..." He sighed heavily. "Eventually, though, I met Clara Oswald. She was with me off and on for a while, and then, one day… it's a long story, but, ugh… another bloody brink-of-war. And another me, having to stop it. But to do that, I couldn't mov. I had to stay put, in order to keep the warring factions at a stand-off, as opposed to allowing them to come to blows and destroy half of the known universe. So, I stayed in that one place for something like six centuries."

"In that same body?"

"Yep. The bow-tie body. Just sitting there, living with people, growing old, holding the war at-bay. Eventually, I just sort of got old and died. Well, there's more to it than that, but that brings us to today," he said. He gestured to his face, and said, "Here I am."

"And Clara?"

He penetrated her dark eyes with his blue ones. "She's still in my life, but after I changed, she changed too."

"I see."

"When I was bow-tie man, she fancied me…" he stopped, and sighed.

Martha smiled. "Poor thing."

"And now, not so much."

"It's hard for us, Doctor. When you change, it's…"

"Not that I'm brooding over it now," he corrected, interrupting her. "Not that I'd even… even if I… I'm actually a married man now, so..."

"What?" she asked, with a big smile.

"Long story," he said with a wave of his hand. "Actually, that story is so long, I don't even know all of it. Anyway, I see Clara quite often these days, but…"

"She doesn't want to live the life, twenty-four-seven anymore?"

"Right."

"Well, I guess… maybe that's the way it goes."

He paused for a noticeable interval, then asked, "Does it?"

She was not used to these particular eyes, and this particular voice, but she was not blind to the scowl, nor the tone. The formidable brow was furrowed at her, and his voice had gone to a whisper.

"I'm afraid so," she said. "Humans… you can say we're superficial if you want, but we do get attached to the way things look, especially people."

"Especially when someone is youthful and handsome and charismatic," he growled. "Easy to get attached, then." He sat back with his arms crossed, and dug holes into her with his eyes.

She responded in kind. "What? What's that _look_ all about?" she asked.

"That's an excellent question, isn't it?" he asked. "What's _this look_ all about?"

She squinted at him, trying to suss out whatever it was that had set him suddenly in this darker direction. She no longer was attuned to his moods, no longer felt whatever he felt…

"Sorry, Doctor, you're going to have to give me more to go on."

He spoke just above a whisper, and almost as quickly as he used to, back when she knew him well. "You're all too quick to make jokes about how _infernally magnetic_ I once was. So quick to smirk about Clara, and how her feelings changed."

"Well, yeah… sorry. Didn't mean to offend you." Suddenly, for the first time today, she properly felt as though she were talking to a stranger.

"When I told you I'd got married, your initial reaction, right out of the gate, was to laugh, smile, and express a charming, childlike disbelief."

"And that's… bad?"

"In the old days, you'd never have made light of any of that. There would have been a _gravitas_. A wistfulness," he growled, breaking eye-contact.

"Yeah, well, that was the old days," she shrugged. Then, "Hold on. Are you actually _offended_ because… were you _really_ expecting me to still be doe-eyed over you, ten years later?"

He didn't say anything, he just sighed, and made the silence in the room even heavier.

"Oh, come on, Doctor," she whined. "Ten years! That might not mean much to you, but… well, for me, it's the difference between twenty-three, and thirty-three. That's huge, in and of itself! It's the difference between being a nomad, and settling down. In that time, let's see… I've been engaged twice, married once, divorced once, had two miscarriages, two careers, lived in four countries, watched my mother waste away from cancer, buried three out of four grandparents, plus a niece. Are we _seriously_ going to even _try_ and compare _me_ with a starry-eyed medical student behind a pub in 2007?"

This deluge of information took him by surprise. Martha had, indeed, grown up, for better or for worse. Sometimes he failed to think of his friends as having eventful lives without him; their lives were wonderful and worth living, of course, but to hear Martha Jones speak of all the loss she had suffered, all of the pulse-pounding, hair-ripping adventures she'd lived right here on Earth, just in a decade… well, he was thrown onto his back foot with these revelations.

"I'm… I'm sorry," he said. "I just…"

"I know," she sighed. "You're used to having one kind of relationship with me. Even for you, it might be hard to accept that the nature of relationships is… to change."

He smiled sheepishly into his lap for a few seconds, rather chuckling. After a long moment, he said, softly, "Look at me, sniping at you because you seemed to have a difficult time dealing with the changes to my outside. And I can't accept the changes you've made on the inside. Some genius I am, eh?"

"It's nothing to do with genius," she said. "It's to do with expectation."

He conceded this, and held her eye, nodding in agreement.

She continued. "Ironically, I think we'd each like to have frozen the other in time."

He continued nodding. "They say that olfactory perception is the most visceral of the sensory input functions, in the human animal. I've never believed that."

"Me neither. It's visual perception, surely. The outside appearance of something is what tackles the senses first, in most cases," she said, matter-of-factly, sipping her tea. "Remember when we first met?"

She said this with a playful air, and duplicated the smile she'd flashed at him on that day in the hospital. In her mind, just for a few seconds, she allowed herself to relive the few moments in which the mischievously fetching "John Smith," in the hospital bed, had returned the flirtation. She'd felt a spark _at first sight_ of him…

"I do, indeed," he said. "I remember feeling rather swayed by exterior appearances myself."

For a long while, they were silent. Martha thought she might be able to guess at what could be bothering the Doctor just now.

There was all this talk about changes to his outsides, and changes to her insides. He had mentioned the fact that his friend Clara doesn't fancy him, now he's regenerated, and he had done so very pointedly. This meeting must have been as impactful upon him, as on her. She considered the shock she'd received upon hearing a strange voice over the phone, and seeing an unfamiliar man emerge from the TARDIS, and reckoned that the Doctor must have been experiencing something similar, with her change in demeanour.

She had been used to a youthful Doctor in a pinstriped suit, with a flirty, cheeky personality. He had been used to a fledgling physician who hung on his every word, and looked at him as though he'd invented the cosmos.

Both had been, perhaps, hoping for a walk down memory lane, if nothing else…

Neither of them got what they bargained for.

"Listen, Doctor," she said. "I'm going to go out on a limb here, and just… say what I'm thinking, okay? Are you ready to hear it?"

"What could I say? No?"

"Okay, here goes," she said, in preparation. She took a deep breath, and addressed the Doctor seriously. "I was, for a time, just… _desperately_ in love with you. This isn't a huge surprise to you."

"No."

"And I would be quite an extravagant liar if I said that that state of affairs was totally intellectual, and had nothing to do with the way you looked at the time."

"I see."

"I was in love, but also…" she smiled with bashful embarrassment. "…in lust. You were, as they say, _sex on legs_ as far as I was concerned. And that bit of torture began for me, oh, perhaps ten seconds after we met."

He smirked.

She continued. "But you're not a vain man – even then, you never were…"

"Really? Don't think so, eh? 'Cause I could tell you things."

"Okay, at least not as a rule," she conceded. "And you're not childish, nor short-sighted, nor selfish. So, I think it might give you some peace to hear from me that _of course_ it was _not_ _all_ about the way you looked. It wasn't _only_ about the eyebrow, and the hair, and the tight suit and the sideburns, and the fact that you were a bloody powder-keg of energy all the time. It was also about the ridiculously intelligent and deceptively sensitive man, at your core."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And, do you know what I'm going to say now?"

"That that's the part that hasn't changed?" he asked, with an indulgent smile.

"Exactly. So maybe I'm out-of-line in assuming that what's been bugging you today is that you wonder if I only fancied your looks, and that's why I'm not all twitterpated now. Correct me, if I'm attributing juvenile qualities to your oh-so-lofty psyche."

The hint of whimsical sarcasm in her voice made him chuckle.

"But just in case I'm right," she said. "I want you to know this: yes, my feelings for you back then had a bit to do with the very-easy-on-the-eyes exterior. Attraction almost always is a lot to do with looks. But the fact that I'm not in love with you now, that has _nothing_ to do with the way you look today."

"It _does_ help to hear you say that. My ego gets the best of me sometimes." He stared into his cup for another long moment, then asked, "So, what _does_ it have to do with? Is it really just time having passed? Your life's difficulties having given you perspective?"

"Well, yes. I think so."

"I mean, I'm asking because, honestly, Martha, all relationship angst aside, I'm curious about your life. Concerned, I mean."

"There's no need to be concerned," she said. "I'm fine. I've been through a lot, but nothing I couldn't handle. Nothing, frankly, terribly abnormal."

"Okay. What is it that's not abnormal, then?"

"Mickey and I moved to New York for a bit, to try and do more with freelance alien-tracking, which went really well, but then, my mother got sick, and we had to come back home. We decided to settle down and try to have a baby before she passed... that didn't work out. Twice, did it not work out."

"I'm so sorry, Martha."

"Thanks, but it could have been worse. I lost them both in the first trimester, fortunately, so it didn't have a _huge_ impact upon our material lives – in fact, no-one outside the family even knew about it – but the losses were still fairly palpable to us. Again, expectation. Hopes were thwarted, a life we'd imagined seemed unattainable…

"Then, when mum died, the whole mess put such a strain on our relationship, Mickey and I might as well have been living on different planets. And eventually…" then she clicked her fingers to indicate that the marriage had dissolved. "After all that loss, I freaked, and went and hid out in Germany for about six months, away from everyone I knew, and did some consulting with UNIT over the phone. Then they offered me a job in Dublin, so I took it. But ultimately, it felt hollow to do that sort of work without… well, without you, and without Mickey. It was five months into that when I got the call that my sister's seven-year-old daughter had had a seizure at school, and died that night."

"God. That's horrible," the Doctor whispered, wiping his forehead and face with one hand. "I mean… that's _properly_ horrible. Trust me, I know from horrible."

She nodded. "I guess that's what I meant when I said _it could have been worse_ , because, for my sister, it really, really was."

There was a long, reverent silence, and then Martha spoke again.

"During that time with you, and that time when I was walking across the planet ducking the Master, I felt I'd learned to listen to messages from the universe," she said. "And when my niece was taken, I reckoned I'd been ignoring what the universe had to say for too long."

"It was telling you to go back to being a doctor."

"Yes," she told him. "So, I opened this place about two-and-a-half years ago. And, for the first time in a long while, I don't feel restless."

"Good for you," he said. "I'm sorry if I… jostled you. Today, I mean."

"You didn't jostle me. I mean, okay, just getting a call from you jostles me a little bit, but… so would getting a call from anyone I hadn't seen in this long, and had once been in love with. But, well, overall… no, I don't feel jostled."

"Good," he said. "I mean, I was probably going to call you to help with the bus accident one way or the other, but… I didn't have to bring up the other stuff. The angsty teenaged crap."

She smiled softly. "So, why did you?"

"I don't know… I guess I was hoping for some closure."

"Closure?" she asked.

He stood up, and paced the room slowly, once. Then he took a spot, leaning against the wall by the door, crossing his arms over his chest.

In this position, he contemplated a little longer, and Martha just gave him space to think.

"Martha, I saw an opportunity today," he said.

"For what?"

"As I said, for closure," he said. "Once I knew I'd be seeing you, I thought I'd be able to tell you some things…"

"Yeah?" she urged, after he didn't say anything for a while.

"I don't want to dredge up a bunch of unwanted _feeling_ , because clearly, our lives have changed. I thought it would be easier to broach the subject with you, frankly, but once I realised _how much_ you'd changed, I realised how much harder it was going to be."

"Once you realised that I'm not still swooning over you, you mean?"

"Yeah," he whispered.

"Just tell me."

He looked at her indulgently. "You mean, you can't guess?"

"I'm not going to guess, Doctor," she insisted.

He sighed. "All right. All that time we were together... some of that time, you thought I didn't know how you felt. Some of that time, you knew that I knew. But all of that time, you thought I didn't care… or at least, didn't care to _do_ anything about it."

"Right."

Carefully, measuredly, he continued. "I think you should know that I _did_ care to _do_ something about it. I did have _feelings_ for you, or whatever you call it. What I did not have was the wherewithal to allow myself to fall in love. I did not have – or, at least, I _thought_ I did not have – the right to insinuate myself into your life in that particular way. I fancied you rather fiercely, in fact, but I was still licking wounds from before, and trying not to overburden you, or myself, with the baggage of my past."

"Oh, Doctor," she sighed.

The silence in the room was oppressive, except for his penetrating voice.

"I absolutely adored travelling with you. You were beautiful. Brilliant. Passionate. Amazing. And all that stuff you said about me… I felt the same way, just, in a much less demonstrable way. In a much less-unfettered, and innocent, way. I did want you, and want to be with you," he said. Then his voice went up in volume, just enough to let her know that the following was really the point of all of this. "And, Martha, I always reckoned that someday I would. I would be ready to take that step, to welcome you into my life, and be free to give you my hearts. I just needed… well, time and space. Time to get used to the idea, to fight back the fear, to decide it was worth the risk. And I was getting there, slowly but surely – the stint in 1969 was a great help to that end."

"Oh, erm, 1969 was hell for me, just FYI," she told him.

"But then, the thing with the Master started happening, and you were gone for a year, and when you came back…"

"I was different."

"You'd found your footing, found your self. You'd got tired of waiting. You'd seen the shortness and fragility of life and seen that you didn't bloody need me in it, complicating things, and making you miserable. That was, I think, the beginning of a metamorphosis."

"I think so too," she confirmed.

"When I saw you again, when you called me to deal with the Sontarans, I thought I'd tell you then, but…"

"The first thing I did was flash an engagement ring at you."

"Yes."

"Kind of killed the mood."

"Yes. And I reckoned then that I should probably just start letting go."

They both fell silent for a long, heavy, few moments. The silence, if possible, grew even deeper, and each of them wondered if the other could hear their heartbeat. The Doctor wondered, in the tar-like pause, whether he'd gone too far, told her too much, and made things worse.

But Martha's brain was going in a somewhat different direction.

"Doctor, were you hoping to… I dunno… _recapture_ something today?" she asked, hesitantly. "I mean, I recognise that it's been eight hundred years…"

"No," he said to her, confidently. "I was not hoping to recapture."

"Okay. I'm pleased to hear that."

"I swear to you, it really was about closure. Just to _tell you_ that thing I'd been wanting to tell you, the elephant in the room ever since the day we met… it's finally been addressed. And in spite of this difficult discussion, it's a _load_ off my mind."

"I can see that. Thanks for your honesty, Doctor."

He moved forward and reprised his seat at the table across from her. "You'd walked away from me, and then I'd walked away from you, leaving you to feel that you hardly mattered to me. I couldn't let that stand, no matter how much time had passed, in both our lives."

She smiled easily, and said, "Clean slate."

"Yeah," he whispered with a warm, but slightly sad, smile.

"So, tell me about your wife," she said, standing up, to heat more water.

* * *

After a somewhat melancholy goodbye, the Doctor dematerialised away from Martha's clinic, and meandered aimlessly in space for a bit. He had come very close to asking her to travel with him again… but he knew he'd be turned down, and he didn't want to put either of them in that position.

But he'd wanted to, because he had almost forgotten how much he _liked_ her. All of their old _feelings_ aside, she was funny and smart and kind; basically just a joy to be around. Sometimes her presence in his life, even in his own brain, got overshadowed by the drama of Rose, who came first, and his long, long relationship with The Ponds and a town called Christmas, in the years following. Martha had been a short, but extremely impactful, blip.

She needn't have been a blip, though. Shouldn't have been, in fact.

Damn it, at age nine-hundred, shouldn't he have been old enough to know back then that he didn't have all the time in the world? Why the hell would he take on a first-mate that he fancied, and then put her on the back-burner while he took his sweet time, working out his own personal daemons? _Yeah, sure, I've got one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen on board with me, and she might be the cleverest human being I've yet met. But you know, I've got infinity to decide to bloody say something to her about what's on my mind, and in my hearts… no problemmo. Oh, hello, Professor Yana. Gee, that's a nice fob-watch you've got there…_

And so, today, he brooded. He did not brood over the fact that Martha Jones wasn't in his life anymore… wasn't his companion or partner or girlfriend or whatever. He was beyond that. He brooded over lost opportunities and wasted potential. He brooded over the scars he had left upon himself, and especially upon her, because he'd been too preoccupied, selfish and afraid to tell her how he felt. He brooded over the evolving he could have done with her, fully aware at his side. He brooded over all that they could have taught each other, if only he'd given them a chance, given them more time and a chance for a deeper connection.

But the part that grated on him the most, was the lack of closure. Today, yes, they had achieved a measure of finality. However, as a time traveller, and as a man who had changed his face twelve times, he was wont to think of different "versions" of people, almost as different people. Martha Jones in her mid-twenties, in his mind, was a separate entity from Martha Jones in her mid-thirties. Time does this to people; it changes them irrevocably, gives them a different look, outlook, energy and skill-set… including _coping_ skills. And so, though thirtysomething Martha Jones now knew how he'd felt all those years ago, twentysomething Martha Jones never would. _She_ would always feel just a bit inadequate, and wonder within herself _why_ she could never catch his eye or convince him to risk more than just his life with her. There was so much happiness that had gone untapped, and so much uncertainty that had taken its place… the thought of that was almost unbearable to him.

Unbearable, so as to be sleep-depriving. He spent forty-eight straight hours in the console room, arranging, and re-arranging his library, ostensibly trying to get his resources in order. But the real reason was the preoccupation that it afforded.

Because, just beneath the surface of all these thoughts was something semi-dangerous. He didn't want to go there, because time and space would frown upon it…

But seeing Martha again had, of course, forced him to recall his younger self. And he was reminded of a day, of a mindset, right at the end, two regenerations ago, when he believed himself to be the last Time Lord in existence (save for the Master, who was certifiable). He had flagrantly broken the laws of time and space as he knew them, and attempted to save the occupants of the Bowie Station on Mars from a fixed, predestined, necessary explosion. He had reasoned that the Time Lords governed time and space, and since he was it, it was _his_ right alone to make the decisions. Who cared about fixed points, paradoxes, the universe having its will? He was the Doctor, damn it, and he was going to win!

Of course, in the end, that particular victory had been quite small…

However, what was consequential here was the rule-breaking, the decision that the old, stodgy Time Lords (who were nowhere to be found at the moment) were either wrong or irrelevant, and all those stupid rules he usually followed were just a precaution anyhow.

Reminiscing with Martha, about the man in pin-stripes, had put him in a rebellious mood.

Though, he reckoned, he could probably give himself, and Martha, quite a bit of peace without doing anything too on-the-outside… certainly it would be nothing like the Bowie Station. There were small rules about fixing things by using time-travel, and big rules, concerning crossing one's own timeline and manipulating the vortex for one's own personal, selfish gain. Today he would, really, only break a small one.

He went round the library balcony, and pulled a few sheets of writing paper from the desk drawer, as well as a pen. As he held the two implements in his hands, he smiled to himself.

He and Martha had talked a lot today about change: appearances, personalities, insides versus outsides. The Doctor underwent almost a total metamorphosis of all superficial qualities every few hundred years (less, if he was careless). And yet, his _handwriting_ always stayed the same.

It was handwriting that any version of Martha would recognise.

He reminded himself that his main goal was simple _closure_ , the gift of peace-of-mind to twentysomething Martha and to himself, and not, after all, the fulfillment of lost potential. _That_ would be just a bit on the selfish side, and might mess with too much of what had happened since then, with River, the Ponds, and Clara. Not to mention, he had to honour the part of _himself_ that, at the time, had been going through some very raw, very real, grief over his previous companion.

And so, he would have to find the optimum moment to give Martha the most reassurance, while causing the fewest ripples.

* * *

 **Whew! So, what're you thinking? Please make my day, and leave a review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**If you'll recall, in part 1, the Twelfth Doctor and Martha Jones had a heartfelt and eye-opening reunion!**

 **This is a first for me - two different Doctors, up and running, in the same chapter! Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever done that in the same story! Twelve kicks things off, but Ten gets the brunt of the effects, for better or for worse...**

 **And if you were wondering at the exact contents of that letter, wonder no more!**

* * *

PART 2

Sometimes, reminiscing about former selves could be downright depressing. Though, eye-opening. Here he was in his twelfth body, so jaded and universe-weary that he had almost forgotten how much he _liked_ Martha Jones. All of their old _feelings_ aside, she was funny and smart and kind; basically just a joy to be around. How could he have let those important details fall by the wayside?

Today, he brooded. He did not brood over the fact that Martha Jones wasn't in his life anymore… wasn't his companion or partner or girlfriend or whatever. He was beyond that. He brooded over lost opportunities and wasted potential. He brooded over the scars he had left upon himself, and especially upon her, because he'd been too preoccupied, selfish and afraid to tell her how he felt.

But the part that grated on him the most, was the lack of closure. As a time traveller, and as a man who had changed his face twelve times, he was wont to think of different "versions" of people, almost as different people. Martha Jones in her mid-twenties, in his mind, was a separate entity from Martha Jones in her mid-thirties. And so, though thirtysomething Martha Jones now knew how he'd felt all those years ago, twentysomething Martha Jones never would. There was so much happiness that had gone untapped, and so much uncertainty that had taken its place… the thought of that was almost unbearable to him.

Beneath the surface of all these thoughts was something semi-dangerous. He didn't want to go there, because time and space would frown upon it…

But seeing Martha again had, of course, forced him to recall his younger self. The rule-breaking. The decision that the old, stodgy Time Lords (who were nowhere to be found at the moment) were either wrong or irrelevant, and all those stupid rules he usually followed were just a precaution anyhow. Thinking of those days put him in a rebellious mood.

He went round the library balcony, and pulled a sheet of writing paper from the desk drawer, as well as a pen. As he held the two implements in his hands, he smiled to himself.

He and Martha had talked a lot today about change: appearances, personalities, insides versus outsides. The Doctor underwent almost a total metamorphosis of all superficial qualities every few hundred years (less, if he was careless). And yet, his _handwriting_ always stayed the same.

He reminded himself that his main goal was simple _closure_ , the gift of peace-of-mind to twentysomething Martha and to himself, and not, after all, the fulfillment of all that lost potential. _That_ would be just a bit on the selfish side.

And so, he would have to find the optimum moment to give Martha the most reassurance, while causing the fewest ripples.

* * *

That Sunday morning in June of 2008 was the first morning in a long, long while which didn't present Martha Jones with somewhere to be. After the universe had been almost destroyed the day before, UNIT had shut down for a few days, as they all regrouped and tried to work out what the accompanying paperwork might say. She knew that they were stymied (and it wasn't the first time) because the Doctor had stepped in and just _handled it_ in his way, and they basically had no blooming idea of what had happened.

The alarm went off at six a.m. like usual, but unlike usual, she did not get up straight away. She hit "snooze," and hoped to go back to sleep.

But she had no such luck.

When she closed her eyes, all she could see were people she'd known while working in New York, being knocked to the floor in an earthquake. She saw the inside of a bunker in Germany, designed to activate the Osterhagen Key, which would destroy the planet. She saw the black barrel of a gun, as a woman had threatened to shoot her in the face if she tried to breach said bunker. She saw images of her friends in peril; Jack, Mickey, Donna, Sarah Jane, Rose, and of course, the Doctor (twice!), surrounded by Daleks, while they watched the universe unravel.

It was disturbing. And annoying. It would not let her sleep.

So, she sat up, cursing.

Upon her night stand, her mobile phone was blinking with a notification, so she opened it, and realised she'd received two text messages from Jack Harkness.

"Miss you. You could still come," the first one said. It had been sent at half-past ten the night before.

The second one said, "Mickey fancies you."

The time code indicated that the second one was sent an hour and a half, and, Martha reckoned, several pints later. The boys must have got a bit pissed, and wound up saying stuff they normally wouldn't. She chuckled at the idea of Jack and Mickey getting drunk together, discussing their _feelings_. She wondered if they'd got on the subject because Jack had tried to talk Mickey into a one-time, drunken snog.

They had invited her to the pub the previous evening, after the three of them had walked away from the TARDIS, relieved that the world as they knew it would keep on turning. But she had declined, in favour of getting some quality sleep, for the first time in a couple of weeks. Perhaps _they_ needed to let loose, but _she_ needed to power down. It had been one hell of a week… even before the whole damn planet had got beamed across the cosmos.

"Mickey," she mused, staring at the message.

The idea that he fancied her was unsettling. Not that he wasn't a good guy, or an attractive one, but… it was weird, wasn't it? His history with Rose, her history with the Doctor, the history of Rose and the Doctor…

Was there such a thing as a love-rectangle?

Though, the more she thought about it, the more she thought, maybe it was perfect. The same two people had driven them both mad with unrequited love, jealousy and pig-headedness. They both knew about living life in the TARDIS while feeling, emotionally, like an exposed nerve, and trying (and failing) to keep the Doctor, and all of the personal issues surrounding him, at arm's length. In a manner of speaking, both of them had to "get over" the Doctor – perhaps they would have a lot to offer one another, in that regard.

Not that any two people could base an entire relationship upon commiseration, but it wasn't bad, as far as a jumping-off point. Though, she had no idea if she had anything else in common with him. She knew almost nothing else about him.

"Ugh," she said aloud, shaking off that train of thought, and standing up from the edge of her bed. What was she thinking? She wasn't really ready to contemplate seeing someone new at the moment.

She still had _two_ men in her wake, whom she had to expunge from her system first.

She headed into the bathroom, and as she reached for her toothbrush, she saw it: the diamond solitaire engagement ring that Tom Milligan had given her, just before flitting off to Africa. She had taken it off and put it in the soap dish last night before her shower, and had left it there, because she couldn't think of a reason to put it back on.

She and Tom had broken up two-and-a-half weeks before, after he'd told her that he wanted to do another year-long service tour with Doctors Without Borders in the Congo. His expressionlessness in telling her so, and in answering her follow-up questions, made her ask, point-blank, "Well, do you even want to get married, then?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I'm sorry, Martha."

She'd sighed. "Don't be. I'm a bit relieved."

They acknowledged (strangely calmly) that their decision to get engaged had been hasty, and derived from the fact that their relationship had been new and exciting. They knew they would soon be separated by a continent, and at the time, they were fiery and smitten.

It had been an eye-opening conversation for many reasons, and it had led to the dissolution of their union. It had been all for the best.

But it had happened while she was in New York, working practically round-the-clock on a crisis, and she'd been staying in a sleep room within UNIT's U.S. headquarters, sharing a bunk with a junior officer, a virtual stranger to her. She'd been more or less living out of a rucksack, which had a hole in the bottom. She hadn't taken off her ring because she hadn't had any place to put it, that would keep it safe… so she'd kept it on her finger throughout the New York crisis and the Reality Bomb Dalek attack. She hadn't had a chance to tell anyone she was no longer engaged...

She finished brushing her teeth, then returned to the bedroom and opened the drawer that housed the red velvet box the ring had come in. She put the ring back in the box, and decided that she would return it to Tom's mother today. Otherwise, she'd have to keep it until he returned to Britain, and in her mind, that would leave an awfully big loose-end, for at least the next eighteen months. For the sake of closure, she needed it back in the rightful hands of the Milligans.

Tom's mum worked from home, so Martha resolved not to accept a cup of tea, not to sit down, so as to disturb the busy woman as little as possible. Her plan was simply to hand over the ring, explain that she and Tom were finished more or less by mutual assent, give her a hug, and leave. She would entrust the full-on exposition and damage-control to Tom. After all, she still had to talk to her own family about the breakup, which would be messy, messy, messy. Francine Jones might as well be President of the Tom Milligan Fan Club – it would not be an easy discussion.

She got dressed, and then opened the bottom drawer of the wardrobe, looking for a handbag. She hardly ever carried one, but today, she needed to carry her wallet, her phone and the ring, so she chose a casual black leather one she'd bought last fall. She deposited the ring inside it, noted that her wallet was still in the holy rucksack downstairs beside the front door, and then went to the night stand for her phone.

Which made her think once again of Mickey.

Martha reckoned that perhaps, in a month or two, she would text Jack back, to see if he had Mickey's number, and _maybe_ she would ring him. Probably just to talk, though. It was entirely possible that _sober_ Mickey didn't fancy her at all, and honestly, she just thought he was cute and nice. More than likely, he had some heart and mettle as well, but she wasn't exactly angling to find out any more about that bit.

She made her way down the stairs, and spotted her rucksack, right inside the door, where she had dumped it the evening before, after her friends had walked her home. The light in the foyer was dim, as she hadn't had a chance to open the blinds yet.

She bent over and opened the rucksack, and fished out her wallet.

And as she did, she noticed something on the floor. She hadn't seen it before because of the poor light, and the fact that it was more or less the same off-white as the foyer rug it was lying upon. It was a letter, addressed to her with only her first name, and it had been slipped through the mail slot.

And she would recognise that handwriting anywhere.

* * *

The TARDIS didn't really have any windows at which one could stand, gaze out into the rain, and reflect on one's lot in life. But today, he wished it had.

Because this lot was leaving him absolutely hollow. And also angry, if those two emotions could exist simultaneously.

In the past twenty-four hours, everyone he cared about had basically left his life.

Watching Mickey and Jack walk away was a mixed bag for him. He felt absolutely certain he'd cross paths with Jack Harkness again someday, and not just in passing. There was more adventure to be had, and the Captain's tenure with the Doctor would never be truly over. Mickey, however… well, his own feelings about the Doctor were a mixed bag, as the Doctor himself well knew.

Rose's departure had stung a lot less this time. The first go-round, two years ago (or three, depending on the point of view), when he'd been a hologram talking to her on the beach, he had waited too long and had missed the opportunity to reassure her that she was loved. It had left her with an itch she couldn't scratch, a wound that wouldn't heal, which was demonstrated when she took advantage of reality collapsing, in order to rip a hole through the void, so she could see him again. He had been missing her, of course, for a while after she left, but honestly, he'd grown a bit fatigued and annoyed with her shadow constantly cast over his life. Not that that was her fault at all.

But yesterday, again on Bad Wolf Bay, with at least _his_ feelings a bit dulled from their years apart, closure had been had. Unlike last time, he'd left her with something to hold onto, quite literally, and had satisfied his own need to see things through.

Then, there was Martha. For a _third_ time, she'd chosen not to stay with him, though he had very little doubt that she still harboured feelings for him… and he for her. But he'd been an idiot. As with Rose, he had waited too long, and their moment had passed. Except, with her, he had had months upon months to bloody say something, and he hadn't. Because, he was nursing a broken heart. He was waiting for the right time. He was weighing the pros and cons. He did not want to complicate her life any further. Et cetera, et cetera… he had been chock-full of excuses, when the _other_ voice in his head came knocking, insisting that he might as well admit he was in love with her.

Then then the Year That Never Was ruined everything.

Well, not really. It had nearly crushed them both, yes, but it had shown her the level of her own mettle, her own perseverance when the lives of those she loved came under fire. Not to mention the future of the planet.

Her "getting out" after having found her strength, in fighting the Master, had been devastating. It was more than just a simple wake-up call to him, it was like he'd been given a lethal dose of _guilt_. It was then that he became weary of Rose's ghost, and these sentimental games which no one could win.

He had loved Rose first, yes, but he loved Martha just as well, and she had never known. She might never know, and she might always have just a bit of a dent on her soul because of it. He reckoned he'd have to live with that… and _that_ stung just now. But it was his penance for being an interpersonal imbecile.

At this moment, all he wanted was to take refuge. He needed and wanted a shoulder just now, and he wished it could be hers. Because, of all the day's departures, difficult as Martha's had been, the worst by far had been Donna's.

Sometimes, he really hated being him. He had performed what had amounted to an act of euthanasia, upon a treasured friend. He had essentially killed the person that Donna had become, in order to save the life of… who? What? The physical Donna, yes, but to preserve her in her larval state, when all she cared about was wine and office gossip and celebrity mags…

Really? This was better?

But the alternative would have been so much worse… and Donna had known that. She could see her own intellectual demise mapped out within her mind, when she'd briefly had the prowess of a Time Lord, and that had been the cruelest part. She had begged him not to make her go, but had known that it was inevitable, just as he had.

He wondered if her voice would ever leave his mind, in those moments when she was sobbing and imploring him not to take away her memories, not to steal the past year of her life away, not to remove himself from her psyche and soul, which would mean that she would always be incomplete…

He kicked the base of the console in anger, with the toe of his jaunty Converse trainer. He felt helpless, alone, and cooped-up. He felt as though time, the very thing he was supposed to be able to navigate (and even control), had totally screwed him. It had passed too quickly. It had folded over on itself. It had absorbed him and his companions somehow…

And then the phone on the console rang.

No, it wasn't the phone on the console. It was the mobile phone resting between the Harflux Navigator and the Cible Locator. Martha's razor, which she had left with him, as she'd walked away the first time.

"Hi," he said evenly, answering the call.

"Hi," she answered, just as evenly.

It had only been twenty-four hours, but it was _always_ nice to hear her voice.

"Are you okay?" he wondered. All of his friends had been put through the wringer... it wasn't unreasonable to wonder if something was wrong.

"I'm fine," she answered. "You?"

He swallowed hard. "Coping."

For a long moment after that, all he could hear on the other end was her sighing.

When she didn't say anything for a bit, he asked, "Martha, is there a reason you've rung?"

"Yeah," she said, "Erm… Doctor, are you alone?"

"Yeah," he answered, quietly, with finality.

"I mean… no-one is in the TARDIS with you?"

"Nope."

"And they haven't just popped off home to visit their mothers?"

"No," he told her. "I'm alone again. Everyone's gone. How did you know?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she exclaimed, "Jesus, it's only been a day. What happened?"

He sighed heavily, and slumped into the seat. "Oh, Martha. That's a story for another time."

"Well, maybe you can tell me soon. In any case, we need to talk."

"About what?"

"About the letter."

"The letter?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"Look, can you be at my flat in an hour?"

"You know I can."

"Good. There's an errand I need to run, just to tie up some loose ends before I can even _think_ about... yeah, we should talk."

* * *

Having parked the TARDIS at the end of the block, he knocked on her door precisely one hour later. It had been such a short time since he'd seen her, he half-expected her to be dressed in the UNIT-issue jumpsuit she'd been wearing the previous evening.

But when she opened the door, he was pleasantly surprised. She was dressed in a pastel-blue spaghetti-strap top and a pair of loose-fitting khaki cargo capris. On her feet, she wore flip-flops, and her hair was swept back off her shoulders, but some casual strands hung about her ears, like parentheses round her face.

She looked fresh-faced, relaxed… achingly beautiful. Well, actually, that last part was no surprise.

"Hi," she said with a smile. "An hour on-the-dot."

"Well, honestly, if I can't be on-time, then what is the point of me?" he asked.

"Come in," she said, gesturing with one arm, and stepping aside.

He had never been inside this flat before – he had only ever visited the one she'd lived in before the Master blew it up. He stepped past her, looking about, and marvelling at how this was the flat of a grown-up, whereas her previous abode had been one of a student.

She had a foyer of course, featuring an off-white rug on the floor, and a stairway jutting up the centre of the flat. Off to the right was a pristine, stylish kitchen. Off to the left was a small parlour, with deep red carpet, an L-shaped white sofa focused on a flat-screen television. Apart from that, there were bookshelves from floor to ceiling throughout most of the room, a coffee table and a desk. This seemed particularly seductive to him, somehow… the books suggested intelligence (which he already knew) while the colours suggested boldness, surety and audacity.

"Would you like a drink?" she asked.

He inhaled, and exhaled exaggeratedly, then asked, "I don't know. Am I going to need one?"

"That's a loaded question. Tea then?"

"No, but if you want one, I'll… help you."

"Thanks, but I just had one," she said, smiling indulgently.

Growing anxious, standing there in the entryway, he asked, "I'm sorry, but… Martha, what is this about?"

"The letter," she responded.

"Yeah, so you said on the phone but…"

"Oh, for God's sake, Doctor," she said lightly, stepping past him, into the parlour. "How old are you now? And you're _still_ playing these games?"

Feigning annoyance, she picked up from the desk two sheets of paper folded together, and held them out to him.

He took his glasses from his breast pocket and threw them on, sniffing a bit as an affectation. Then he studied her briefly, before doing likewise with the document she'd given him.

He was astonished to see a letter that he had never seen before… written by his own hand!

His first instinct was to wonder who had forged his penmanship so flawlessly, but as he read further, his thinking changed.

 _"Dear Martha,_

 _"Before I get ahead of myself, and jump headlong, unwisely quickly, into the substance of this little endeavour (which, of course, I would never, ever do… not me, no) I must preface it with an important proviso._

" _And that is this: I don't expect anything from you. You owe me nothing. Because, as you may, in passing, have heard, I am a damaged man, with tonnes upon tonnes of baggage to carry about this great old universe. And you, you're engaged to Tom. So, I recognise that the possibilities are not exactly endless and that once again, I have let the proper moment pass. Please don't feel derailed by this in any way; there is nothing in my motivations except to expunge a certain shadow from my soul, and dare I hope, from yours._

" _Now to my objective in writing this letter._

" _During our time together, I was not ignorant of your feelings toward me. Deaf, dumb and blind though I may have seemed, Dr. Jones, I knew, because I felt the same toward you. I found myself completely taken with you from that first day in the hospital on the moon. Even with adrenaline pumping, life and limb in peril, I was distracted by your eyes, and that flirty twinkle in your gaze. Add to that the fact that you are courageous, brilliant, kind and passionate, and how on Earth could I contain that compulsion to bring you into my mad old life? And once I did, over time, I learned that what I'd seen at Royal Hope was only the tip of the iceberg, that your beauty, your capacity for amazing feats and tremendous love was actually fairly staggering._

" _I don't know if I became intimidated by this, or if I was just nursing a broken heart and wasn't ready to give myself to you, but something held me back. Of course, I told myself it was the latter, but the more time that goes on, the more I wonder. Because, when I look back on that time, and I think of you, and I think of what was happening inside my hearts, I see only cowardice. A man who is just 'not ready,' he might find his resolve, and then lose it at the moment of truth – that's normal. But a coward, he never takes the initiative at all, preferring to convince himself that he will act when the time is right. And indeed, Martha, I used to imagine what words I might whisper to you, when that day came, but at no point did I ever make any concrete decision to do so._

" _Someday, I said. Soon, I said. When I'm not so raw. When I don't feel so much in turmoil._

" _Well, come on. When have I ever not been in turmoil?_

" _And then, one day, it became too late. We were embroiled with the Master before we even knew it, and all hope was lost. It was save the world, or save our hearts. Perhaps you did both. Since you trekked across the planet at my bidding, I sometimes reassure myself that there was some emotional fulfillment in that for you. But for me, watching you blip off the Valiant… I knew it was over. I was even more helpless than usual; you were gone, and the Martha Jones I knew would never be back. And I was right, wasn't I? At the end of it, I could see it in your eyes: you'd grown up, and had had it with me, and the mad old life. How could I blame you? How could I hold you back? You so clearly needed to be away from me, needed to heal and find yourself again._

" _Which you did, and I am immensely proud of you. But I still wonder if, buried beneath all that soul-searching and confidence, somewhere, there lies a vestige of the uncertainty you felt while you travelled with me. Perhaps you're still asking 'why?' or 'what went wrong?' or (I cringe even to write the words), grinding on your own inadequacies. I hope you're not, because that would be daft. Seriously, stop it. You don't have an inadequate cell in your body, I'm sure of it._

" _But human nature being what it is, perhaps you are, in fact, grinding a bit. And that's why I'm writing this letter. To give you satisfaction, closure, even vindication, by letting you know, in no uncertain terms:_

" _I love you. I've been in love with you, on some level, since I met you. I'm haunted every day by it. And I'm haunted every day by my failure._

" _If I know you as well as I think I do, then at this point, you've stopped going further in the letter, and have read the last four or five paragraphs over again, multiple times, just to make sure you've got it right. Rest assured, you've got it right._

" _You should also rest assured that time is vast, my life is long, and I will be fine, in the end. You have left an indelible print upon my psyche to be sure, but with distance and years, the ache will dull. The knowledge that you have marriage and success and adventures ahead of you, it's enough for me to be able to walk away from you in good conscience. I want nothing but the absolute pinnacle for you, and we should both feel secure in moving forward._

" _Your friend, the madman in the box, The Doctor."_

The first few seconds after finishing the letter were devastating.

And then he swallowed down the panic, and looked at Martha squarely.

The life of a time-traveller is a strange one, and things don't always happen to him in the right order; this had been illustrated time and again, most recently by Sally Sparrow and River Song. Both women had asked him, in different ways, to take a leap of faith, and trust in _time_ to fill in the blanks, to heal all the ills that his confusion brought on. So, he'd taken the large envelope from Sally and kept it on his person, trusting that he'd need it someday – and he had. He'd run with impunity with River in the library, trusting that someday, _her very existence_ , and all that she knew, would make sense.

At first, he'd thought the letter was a forgery, but he'd changed his mind. The handwriting had been so unmistakably his, and more importantly, the _sentiments_ in the letter were unmistakably his. He recognised the resigned angst, feeling the possibilities disappear, now that she was getting married to someone else. He recognised the precise memory of being struck, sometimes in inappropriate moments, by the "flirty twinkle" in her gaze, and the despair he felt when he knew that Martha would come back _changed_ from her trip around the world. He recognised his own thoughts on being "not ready" to share his feelings for her, versus being a coward. The difference between the two, as described in the letter, were spot-on.

And so, he reckoned that now, it was _himself_ asking him to take a leap of faith. And he did trust in _time_ to fill in the blanks somehow – that much was in his nature. At some point in the future, he must decide that the best course of action, for some reason, is to write this letter and deliver it to Martha, precisely on this day. Something in his personal future must require it, and so, he decided to submit to his future self's decision, and see it through in good faith.

But just now, at this moment, with Martha standing there, hands on her hips, looking perfect, waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to "handle" the situation, he had no chuffing idea what that leap of faith might look like. He'd grown more or less accustomed to the idea that he'd never get to tell her how he felt, that it would be now, in fact, inappropriate of him to do so. He had retreated from those thoughts somewhat, and no longer rehearsed his confessions to her. So, what the hell was he supposed to say now?

"I see," was what he chose, his hearts racing.

"You see?" Then, after a pause, she said, "I mean, didn't you write that letter?"

He chuckled. "Obviously, I did."

"Well, did you mean any of it?"

He took a deep breath. "Yes," he confessed.

"Wow."

"So _did_ you read those four paragraphs multiple times, just to make sure?"

"Of course," she shrugged.

He moved round her, staring at the letter. He made his way to the sofa and sat down.

She did likewise, sitting across the "L" from him.

"Are you sure wouldn't like that drink?" she asked, searching his face.

"I'm sure, thanks," he said, quietly.

"Doctor, I don't get you. I mean, you seem a bit, well, blindsided by this. Didn't you _just_ slip this letter through my mail-slot this morning? Like, three hours ago?"

He thought fast. He didn't want to lie to her. Wherever this was headed, he wanted there to be as much transparency as possible…

Yet, the way he was acting, he could see why she'd be a little confused by it, if he had, in fact, just written the letter and delivered it this morning.

He didn't know exactly how far in the future he would write the letter, but he'd been a Time Lord long enough to know that it was highly improbable that he would write it in order to change his own personal timeline. Unless he goes nutty in the future, and thinks "Screw it. Martha and I live happily ever after, even if it fucks up everything that happens in the interim. Laws of time and space be damned!"

In the letter, he says that his motivation for writing it is closure. Vindication for her, and a lightening of the Martha-shaped shadow on his own soul. It was not unreasonable for him to think that he could repair that one loose-end, as a gift to them both, and that Martha wouldn't call him on it because she'd be engaged, at this point. In that case, nothing would significantly change.

"I guess, the reason I feel blindsided is… I hadn't expected to hear from you about it," he said. "And now I don't know what to say." He leaned back on the sofa and pulled one hand down over his face, in a gesture of exasperation.

"Seriously? Doctor, you really thought I could just let this go?"

"I thought that you would feel, just like it says, vindicated. I thought it would give you some closure, so you could move forward. I thought that out of courtesy to Tom, you would… I don't know, tuck it away, feel comfortable with the knowing, and move on with your life."

She smiled softly. "I see. But I'm not with Tom anymore," she said.

"You're not?" he asked, squinting at her.

"No," she reported. "As of two-and-a-half weeks ago."

"But yesterday, you were wearing your ring."

She nodded. "I'd been staying in a non-secure sleep room at UNIT in New York, living out of a holy, worn-out rucksack. It was safer just to keep it on, rather than risk losing it."

"Ohhhh," he said, his stomach doing a little flip.

The future-Doctor must not have known this bit.

"Just before you got here, I returned the ring to Tom's mum," she said. "I wanted to be completely done with Tom before talking to you."

"I understand that," he conceded, nodding. Nervousness was rising, though… very quickly.

"But while we're on the topic," she said. "How is it that you're alone? Last I saw you, you had Rose back in your life, but then I receive a letter telling me you love me! After everything we've… after everything, you can see how weird that seemed to me."

"Yeah."

"And _then_ , you tell me you're flying solo again! Seriously, Doctor, after all that pining you did, and after all it took for her to get back to you…"

"It's a long story, Martha."

"Clearly."

"Suffice it to say, she's gone. She's not a factor anymore."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said to her softly. "It's really okay."

There was a long moment in which they both contemplated what, if anything, they would like to say next.

Martha knew why she'd called him, but she had no idea how to say it now. She supposed she had expected _him_ to say it, but it would seem that he still wasn't ready.

And the Doctor now knew that his future-self had not intended for him to get involved at all. He hadn't known that Tom was out of the picture by the time the Dalek Reality Bomb crisis had hit, so today, the present-Doctor was flying blind. There was no course, no trusting in time to set things right. Because, he was relatively certain he knew why Martha had called him after receiving the letter, and if things went down that road, he risked changing the natural course of both of their lives.

He felt cornered. He felt like a rabbit caught in headlights. What would be the right thing to do? Tell her _now_ that he couldn't be with her, break her heart, and make things worse? Or even more terrifying to think of, wait until she made a move, and then _turn her down_? This would absolutely negate the purpose of future-Doctor's having written the letter, and in fact, would exacerbate the self-loathing and insecurities hanging over both of their heads, going forward.

Moreover, he was certain that if Martha took the first step toward him, he would not have the strength to move away. With all feelings out in the open, hearts vulnerable, desire and expectation brimming, what they'd both been longing for, so close to the brink of fruition… _how_ could he reject it?

"Doctor," she sighed, sitting back on the sofa, crossing her legs casually. "I called you here… well, basically just to talk. There's a lot to say."

"Yes, there is."

"I just don't know…"

"What?" he asked, after she trailed off without any follow-up. "What don't you know?"

"I don't know what I want to talk about."

He frowned. "Okay. I'm not sure what you mean."

She looked at him squarely. "I thought I would know what to say when I saw you."

He chuckled. "That never works, does it?"

"I thought I would feel that old… I dunno," she said. "That old _feeling._ The flutter in my stomach, followed by the knot. The devastating desire to be with you. The ache."

"And you don't feel that anymore?"

"I do," she confessed. "I feel all of those things. It's like a hurricane, inside and outside my body."

He nodded. "I understand that."

She looked at him squarely for several seconds and then, "I love you."

She said these words steadily, with no waver nor hesitation. But also with no joy.

"I love you," he replied, just as heavily.

"But when you first arrived, and when I look at you now, I feel so… I dunno. Torn."

"Torn."

"Yes. I want you, but I also want my life."

"I see," he said.

And tears filled her eyes. "And that makes me feel so guilty," she told him, her voice breaking just a little.

"Guilty? Why?" he asked.

"Because," she explained, now with a few tears falling. "For so long, the only thing I really wanted was you. I would have given up everything to be yours. Everything I had… and I almost did. And now, well… I like my job. I like my flat. I like being my own person, and not identifying as someone's sidekick or companion, or even fiancée. I can come and go as I want, and I can climb the ladder at work, or not, and I'm reluctant to walk away from all of that."

"So? That's all perfectly normal!"

"I know. But not so long ago, I wanted a life of trouble-shooting the universe, doing good works and learning about the cosmos. Now, I'm having second thoughts about all of that because I want to live my cushy little life. It just seems so selfish." As she said this, new tears fell, and she tried to wipe them away.

"It's not selfish. And it's not a cushy little life. You're still doing good works and learning something every day with UNIT," he said. "Except now, at the end of it, you can come home to _your_ home, _your_ things, see _your_ friends and family if you want. Martha, I get why you want all that."

"I'm being childish."

"No, you're not."

"Yes I am. When I think about giving up all of this, I can't bear it. I wonder _who_ I would become. I wonder if my _self_ would disappear. But when I think about you walking away, going off in your TARDIS without me, and you and I never…" she sighed, by way of finishing her sentence. "I can't bear that either. It makes me ache all over again."

"You want both," he said with a smirk. "That's very human."

"I know."

"And also very Time Lord, as it happens."

She smiled at him, understanding what he was saying. And they held each other's eyes a bit sadly for a few moments.

Independently, they were both imagining a scenario in which they got to have both of what they wanted – each other, and their way of life. But, the Doctor quickly realised that he could not consider taking Martha out on the open road now, whatever their relationship was, knowing that she'd be pining for home, and wondering if she'd given up her independence and identity to be with him. And Martha could not fathom asking the Doctor to stay put, on Earth, for any length of time, just to be with her. At one time in his life, she knew, exile on Earth had been meted out to him as a _punishment._ She knew he'd be bored out of his mind, and she'd see the constant wanderlust in his eyes, and read the itch in his limbs, to fly away and do what he does best.

And yet, when they imagined themselves _together_ , wherever it was – having the domestic life in London, racing the clock on some distant planet, or just tangling sheets… _that_ felt right. It felt painfully perfect. Like an orchid coming to bloom, or the seemingly divergent parts of a symphony coming together.

It stung to think of it because, once again, they had missed their chance. And they both knew it.

And even though he knew that he was only here because of a breach of ethics, and a miscalculation, on the part of his future-self, he loved her, and there was no getting around it. He was here, with her, and desires cannot just be abated with logic. The heart wants what it wants (and so does the body), and when it doesn't get it, it aches.

"Well, this is rubbish," he said, in reaction, in spite of himself.

"It is," she sighed. "I'm sorry I brought you here for this."

"Don't be," he said. "Like you said, some things needed saying."

Tears fell down her face for a few moments silently, then she asked, "Now what?"

He held out his arm to her, and whispered, "Come here." She moved to her left and leaned against him, while he put that arm around her. She laid her head, and one of her hands, on his chest. Not for the first time, she felt the dual heartbeat in a warm reminder of the uniqueness of this man. And, the impossibility of him.

After a few minutes of just _closeness,_ she said, "There's another reason why I'm feeling guilty, Doctor."

"What's that?"

"Two years ago, I thought that if you asked… if you would _just ask,_ " she groaned, her voice breaking again. Then she paused to steady her voice, and finished, "I would be yours forever. Until one of us died. I feel like I've grown so much older, just in that time, but there's still a starry-eyed medical student inside of me who looks at you, and can't see anything else."

"And is she screaming at you, from inside, right now?"

"It's so loud, I can hardly stand it." The metaphor seemed a bit tame for how Martha felt, with the pang, the burn of missed opportunity.

"Well, maybe there's a way to quiet her, temporarily, while we both ease into living with what we've done," he said.

"Like what?"

"Do you have any plans today?"

"No," she said. "It's Sunday. It's not like I'm a church-goer."

"Why don't we just take today, and… pretend?"

"Pretend?"

"Yeah," he said. "Do stuff that couples do. Picnic in the park, the cinema, candle-lit dinner… whatever you want. And pretend that we have all the time in the world to _be_ a couple."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I know it would make _me_ feel better, if we didn't have to just shake hands and say goodbye right this minute. If we could just have _fun_ , without the risk of life and limb, without the angst that always hung over our heads. If we just had _one day_ like that…"

"Okay," she agreed. "My inner medical student might just be quelled by that. By a glimpse of you with a bit of the romantic about you. Then she could stop wondering, at least."

"Good. What would you like to do?"

* * *

 **Well, I warned you... it's a ship fic. And after this, it gets shippier!**

 **Don't forget to leave a review! :-D**


	3. Chapter 3

**So, erm, this chapter is weird, but really, the whole thing is weird, so why split hairs, eh?**

 **Anyway, in this chapter, Ten and Martha get a bit side-tracked, from their quest to pretend at coupling. Wouldn't you know it, a bunch of sci-fi rubbish gets in their way, but fear not, they will be back in the fast lane soon enough!**

* * *

PART 3

A crushing realisation had come to roost within them both: their time had passed. Their relationship, such as it was, would never work. They were both too devoted to their own lives, their _selves_ , their own brand of making their worlds better places to be. Neither was willing to give up their lot, their little corner of existence they had carved out for themselves, nor ask the other to do any such thing. And so, they had to be grown-ups.

Eventually.

"Why don't we just take today, and… pretend?" the Doctor suggested.

"Pretend?"

"Yeah," he said. "Do stuff that couples do. Picnic in the park, the cinema, candle-lit dinner… whatever you want. And pretend that we have all the time in the world to _be_ a couple."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I know it would make _me_ feel better, if we didn't have to just shake hands and say goodbye right this minute. If we could just have _fun_ , without the risk of life and limb, without the angst that always hung over our heads. If we just had _one day_ like that…"

"Okay," she agreed. "My inner medical student might just be quelled by that. By a glimpse of you with a bit of the romantic about you. Then she could stop wondering, at least."

"Good. What would you like to do?"

She smiled, pulled away from him and sat back on the sofa, and thought for a few moments. "I would like us to go pick up some fresh ingredients, then come back here and cook a rich, elaborate meal together."

He smiled in kind, and asked "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, sitting up straight, and turning to look at him. "Is that so strange?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Not at all. It sounds brilliant."

She sighed, and dropped her eyes to her hands resting nervously in her lap. "It's one of the things I always fantasised I might do with you."

" _That_ is what you fantasise about doing?" he asked, laughter just beneath the surface.

"Well, yes. Among other things," she admitted, sheepishly.

He looked at her sideways, grinning mischievously, and said, "Okay, good, good."

"What about you? What would _you_ like to do?" she asked.

"I think we should go to the Hampshire Farmers' Market in Petersfield," he said. "If we're going to pick up fresh ingredients, let's do it right."

"Petersfield? That's quite a hike."

"Please! I could take you to a luau in medieval Japan," he said. "If medieval Japan _had_ luaus."

She chuckled. "Forgot who I was talking to."

"But I think we should just drive," he said. Then, after a pause, he asked, "Do you have a car?"

"Of course," she answered.

"And a driving licence?"

"Yeah," she laughed. "It's not a TARDIS, but I can get you there. It's an hour and a half's drive, you know."

"I know," he shrugged. "We'll make a day of it. We'll get there just in time for lunch, and they have street foods we can nosh on – the freshest chicken wraps with different chutneys and cabbages, _amazing_ corn-on-the-cobb!"

"Sounds good," she said, with a smile.

"Sometimes, they have artisan soaps and cheeses and, like, peanut butter and things like that. Sometimes live music. And then, of course, we can decide what we'd like to prepare for dinner, and buy the ingredients we need… which is the real objective, right?"

"Right!" she chirped, standing up. "Sounds like a date!"

"It is," he confirmed, standing up, as well.

They stood there awkwardly in the crook of Martha's L-shaped sofa, and looked at each other then, both with nervous smiles.

Before she knew what was happening, the Doctor's hand was on the small of her back, pressing her in towards him, and his mouth was against hers. She was a bit startled… but what could she do, other than go with it?

The kiss lasted only lasted about five seconds. But when he pulled away, she fancied that she felt something _deeper_ about to happen, a shift of the kiss into _sigh_ territory, where tongues, hands, bodies might get involved. His retreat was abrupt, and seemed to happen a split second before, as far as Martha was concerned, the next level in the spiral might begin. Which told her it was just that: a retreat.

It was painful. But also beautiful…

And then, they both giggled a bit.

"If we're doing things that couples do…" he said.

"Yes, very nice," she agreed, rather a bit too business-like, and too silly, at the same time somehow.

* * *

They drove the ninety minutes to Petersfield, where the roving Hampshire Farmers' Market had set up shop this week, chatting easily the entire way. Martha had never been to this specific town before, but she found it bright, and welcoming, especially its town centre and pedestrian walks. "I've _got_ to get out of London more often," she commented, taking in the quaint churches on patches of grassy knoll, the multi-coloured houses and parents walking with their prams in the sun.

The Doctor wanted to remind her that she was welcome in the TARDIS anytime, and that this would afford her the chance to get out of London, and then some. But he refrained. He reckoned it would cause a tense moment, and would break the "fourth wall" of the cute little pretence they had built in coming here.

The Hampshire Farmers' Market, as it turned out, was not the only outdoor market in town. Its classification as a "market town" meant that artisans brought their wares from all over the country.

But their interest today was specifically, at least ostensibly, in fresh produce.

Eventually, they found a place to park, and followed the signs, and the crowd, toward their destination.

"Whoa," Martha said, entering through a waist-high metal barrier, and looking about. "This is really cool!"

"I know, right?" he exclaimed, taking her hand.

"Wait, you're not going to tell me that you helped set up the Hampshire Farmers' Market, or invented, like, rhubarb, or something, are you?"

"No, this is all British skill and ingenuity," he chuckled.

"Although…" she said, pointing at a sign that said _Crêpes et Frites_ , and had a man inside speaking French-accented English to a few customers, while he spread batter over a pan the size of a hubcap, with a special tool.

"Yeah, but look over there," the Doctor said, pointing in a different direction. "Doesn't get much more British than that!"

It was a display of pies. The spread looked like a sculpture, in fact, as some of the pies had been cut in half or in quarters, for maximum aesthetic effect, and of course, as a delicious-looking advert. She looked at the tiny signs, kept in-place by stylish silver card-holders. "Shiitake mushroom and asparagus," she said. "Chicken and leek with white wine?" She laughed.

"Yeah, okay, but there's also nice, normal Hampshire steak pie, old English pork and cider…"

"Pheasant, plum and gin?" she asked, reading further. "Slow-cooked lamb and beet in red wine?"

"Well, it's the twenty-first century, Martha!" he pointed out. "What do you want? The big, boring steak cubes in brown sauce in a dry pastry, like you grew up with?"

"Sorry," she corrected herself. "I suppose British ingenuity does now include some culinary prowess, doesn't it?"

"It has to," he commented. "You lot have been mocked by the rest of the world for your _lack_ of culinary prowess. And you can't claim Indian food as your own, so _someone_ had to step up and stop the boiled-meat train!"

She laughed, and they kept walking.

Every stall had some type of "craft" or "artisan" wonder, sometimes British favourites made exotic, sometimes decidedly un-exotic was the appeal. Sometimes the scent of foreign foods filled the air – Gyros, kebabs, Thai-style pork lettuce wraps…

They came upon a stand that had organic chicken pita wraps with cucumber sauce and a melon-mango chutney. This was sort of what the Doctor had mentioned, when he was trying to "sell" her on the idea of coming here, and she had been thinking about it ever since. This was what she chose for lunch, and she ate it as they walked.

He chose a seafood pasty, which did not appeal to Martha in the least, and the two of them walked some more, commenting on what they saw, and eventually what they heard.

They turned a corner and found a small covered area with café tables and chairs, and a three-person band playing some blend of folk, country and rock music. The singer was female, and she wasn't good at all (in fact, she was barely staying on-key), but that wasn't the point. They sat down, listened, shared a craft-made ginger beer, and occasionally held hands.

At some point, Martha looked at her watch. "If we're going to go home and cook, maybe we should get a shift on. No time machine today, eh?"

He smirked. "No, I suppose not."

"Is there any actual produce at this farmers' market?"

"Erm, yeah," he said, looking about. "If that sign over there can be believed, it's that way."

"Shall we?"

"Yes," he said, as they both stood. "But what are we _in the market_ for?"

She chuckled.

"See what I did there?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," she sighed. "I don't know. What are you in the mood for?"

"Blimey, is _that_ a dangerous question on a day like this," he muttered.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing," he said. "It's hard to say, because we just ate, but… let's see what looks good, and just, you know… wing it."

* * *

They made their way, hand-in-hand, down the nearest aisle, toward the sign the Doctor had seen. They were silent for a few moments, and then he heard her let out a fairly dramatic sigh.

"What is it?" he wondered.

"It's just…" she began. She took a long pause, then steeled herself. "I know we're supposed to be _pretending_ today and all that, so I probably shouldn't even say this, but… this has been _such_ a nice day with you. The talking, and the laughing, and the spending of easy time together, and looking forward to a good flirty frolic in the kitchen with sauces and spices and wine, and having a romantic dinner…"

"You shouldn't say that?"

"What I shouldn't say is, I can't shake the feeling that we're just making things worse. I know that neither of us wanted to just walk away from each other this morning, but... aren't we making it harder to say goodbye, not easier? Isn't this counterproductive?"

"Maybe," he admitted, with a big sigh.

"And it makes me think I should hold back."

"Mm-hm," he agreed. "Me too."

"I mean, with every moment that passes, I fall a little bit deeper. I get a bit happier, a bit gladder that we decided to come here today, and then…"

"You remember it's just today."

"Yeah."

"Yeah," he echoed. "I feel it too. It doesn't have to be just today. Not necessarily, Martha."

"We just don't _fit_ in each other's lives anymore, Doctor," she said.

"Well," he sighed. "What if we took stock?"

"Took stock?"

By now, they were in the largest section of the market, where the farmers actually sold fresh produce – some of the best in all of Britain.

"Yeah," he said. "Let's play out today as planned. We'll buy some nice, ripe courgettes or something, decide on a dinner, have a good _flirty frolic_ in the kitchen, and dine by candle light. And then, tomorrow, we can meet up again and maybe, you know, rethink where all of this is headed."

She sighed, and inwardly braced against the rush of desire that came over her... desire for him, his lifestyle, desire to see the universe again, and the compulsion just to say, "Yes. Let's go - show me the stars once more!" She could feel herself getting pulled back into him. Him, his thrall (whatever that meant) and that of his insane life, and all he had done was _suggest_ that they _discuss_ being together, after today.

She remained in contemplative silence for a few moments, then she said, "Okay, we can take stock. Because I guess... who are we kidding, right? We both know it's going to come to that, one way or the other. But not for a few days. Not until the influence of today has worn off. Not until at least I have had just a bit more time to live my life, and..."

Her monologue was interrupted by a crashing sound nearby. Suddenly, a myriad of differently-coloured bell peppers was rolling about their feet. The wooden box stand containing the peppers was on the ground awkwardly, and a woman was lying face-down across it.

The man nearest to her, presumably her husband, grabbed her, turned her over, and began shouting, "Julie! Jules, what's happened to you? Talk to me! Julie!"

The crowd formed a semi-circle around the pepper stand, gasping. The Doctor and Martha both surged forward, trying to pry their way through the crowd gathering in front of them…

But before they could properly react, the woman, Julie, went into a violent sort of seizure.

"Excuse me, excuse me!" Martha shouted, pushing at those in her way. The Doctor was doing something similar. "We're doctors, we can help! Excuse me!"

They emerged from the crowd and knelt beside Julie. The Doctor grabbed the convulsing woman and turned her on her side, holding her there. This was awkward, because he was now, more or less, squatting in a big, fallen box of peppers.

"You two are doctors?" asked the man.

"Yeah," Martha said. "Are you her husband?"

"Yes, I'm Ward."

"And your wife is Julie?"

"Yeah."

"Is this your pepper stand?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes," he answered. "This one, and two others… gourds and roots, down that aisle, there."

"Does Julie have a history of seizure, Ward?" Martha asked.

"No! Not at all! She's healthy as a horse! Never so much as a headache!"

"Oh my God!" Martha exclaimed as Julie began foaming at the mouth. A white lather began pouring sideways down her cheek, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

"Julie!" the Doctor called to her. "Julie, can you hear me? Julie!"

"What the hell is that?" cried Ward.

"We don't know," Martha told him. "Just give her some space, okay?"

A minute or so passed, during which the seizure continued, onlookers stared and took photos, and the Doctor talked to Julie soothingly, softly.

When the foam stopped coming out of her mouth, Martha asked Ward, "Have you got rubber gloves? Or even plastic ones?"

Ward turned, and searched through a plastic bin, beside a collapsible table that held the stand's computerised till. He turned back around with a box of foodservice-grade cellophane gloves.

"Will these do?" he asked.

"They'll have to," Martha said. She pulled on the gloves, and began to clear the foam out of Julie's mouth.

"Careful she doesn't bite off your finger," the Doctor warned.

"I know, I know," she said. "We've got to keep her unobstructed, though, because…"

And that's when there was a very large spark, or a very small explosion coming from behind Ward. The crowd gave a collective gasp, and retreated _en masse._

"What the hell?" shouted Ward.

The computer attached to the till was now afire, and the screen had gone black. Then, after about five seconds, a scroll of seemingly random letters and numbers flew down the screen like a waterfall.

"Martha, hold her," the Doctor said.

Martha obliged, and the Doctor moved toward the computer. He grabbed a canvas tarp strewn nearby, and beat the fire out.

Ward was not sure where to put his attention now.

"What are you doing?" he asked the Doctor, as the Time Lord extracted his sonic screwdriver, and began examining the computer.

"Finding out what the hell just happened," the Doctor replied, the tool buzzing in his right hand, while his left hand tried to wave away the toxic smoke.

"So, what, you're a doctor, _and_ an IT guy?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said, without hesitation, without realising how strange it must sound.

Another minute or so passed with Martha tending to a convulsing patient, the Doctor tending to a convulsing computer, and Ward, the pepper, gourd and root vendor, standing between them, basically freaking out.

And then, the seizure seemed to subside.

"Think she's done," Martha said.

"Thank God," Ward said, falling to his knees at his wife's side. "Is she okay, then?"

Martha turned the woman over on to her back. "I'm sorry, I don't know. She's unconscious, as you can see. I suppose we should get her to hospital."

Martha lifted Julie's eyelids and began to speak to her, but what she saw in Julie's eyes caused Ward to exclaim something guttural, and fall backwards onto his bum.

"Doctor!" Martha cried out.

"Hm?" he asked, still buzzing at the computer.

"Doctor, look!"

"Bit busy here, Martha. We've got a small-scale infiltration of some sort. I can't pin it down yet, but… anyone else noticing this?" he asked the gathered crowd. "Anyone with a Smartphone or a Blackberry, or something like that? Is there any interference?"

A few people in the crowd checked their devices, but no-one seemed to be affected by the phenomenon that had attacked Ward's computer.

"Doctor!" Martha tried again

"What?" he asked, annoyed.

Just then, Julie's eyes flew open, and large, yellow, cat-like irises shone brightly, as though lit from behind. And she began to speak in a language that Martha did not understand. In fact, she was fairly certain, given the circumstances, that it was not a human language. Her voice was her own, though she seemed to be speaking in unison with someone unseen.

When the Doctor heard it, he turned, eyes wide, and he approached. Ward swore, and stood up, then froze in place, staring. The crowd made a low scuttle, but mostly, they were silent and watchful.

When Julie, or whoever was now speaking, took a break in her discourse, the Doctor put his hand on Martha's shoulder. "Martha, get away from her."

"Why?"

"She might be contagious," he said softly, then knelt to take Julie's weight against his arm, as Martha stood up and stepped aside. He addressed Ward. "Let me have your shirt."

Ward climbed out of his plaid flannel overshirt, and was left in a light blue tee-shirt.

The Doctor asked the crowd, "Can I get a two or three people to move this box out of the way?" And then, he held Julie upright while three young men removed the box, and stood it up against the side of a nearby lorry.

The Doctor wadded up Ward's flannel shirt and put it under Julie's head, so that he could lay her down, with her head on the asphalt.

He stood, and joined Martha and Ward, looking down at the unfortunate woman. That's when Julie began to speak again, and the Doctor listened.

When the speech was over, Julie closed her eyes, and seemed to be simply sleeping. Still wearing the foodservice gloves, Martha ventured to take her pulse, and announced, "Pulse is fine, nothing unusual."

"How can you say _nothing unusual_?" Ward cried out.

At that, the Doctor said to the crowd, "This woman is fine, danger is averted. She is in good hands. So, disperse, would you? Go, go, go! And don't call any paramedics or police, do you hear me?"

"Someone needs to know," said a plump woman at the front, while the crowd began to break up.

"Someone _does_ know," Martha told her. "We know. She's under our care now, and that of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. I'm their Chief Medical Officer. If you don't believe me, call them and ask – Colonel Mace will run a voiceprint and vouch for me. Trust me, no more authority is needed."

"Don't know what the hell that means, but all right…" the woman said, wandering away, muttering to herself.

"Someone's surely already called an ambulance," a man in the crowd pointed out, as he walked away. "Just sayin'."

"He's right," the Doctor said to Martha and Ward, softly. "We don't need them plodding in here… we need to get her out of here. And the computer. Ward, do you have a place we can take her?"

"Yeah," he said. "It's about a ten minute drive from here… on Fetch Lane, that leads north, out of town."

The Doctor bent and picked up the unconscious woman. "Lead on."

"Let me take her," said Ward, tears coming to his eyes. "She's my wife."

"No. She might be carrying some kind of contagion," the Doctor said. "Trust me when I say, I've got a better chance of fighting it off than you do."

Ward nodded, and Martha could see he was holding back tears. She put her arm around his shoulder, and laid her head against his arm for a moment.

"I'm sorry this is happening to you," she whispered, trying to comfort him.

"Me too," he replied. "Glad you're here, though. But are you sure we shouldn't take her to hospital?"

"No hospital would know what to do with her," she told him.

With his laptop under his arm, Ward led them a block from the town centre, to a white van with the words _Hawkins Randall Farms_ painted on the side.

Ward opened up the back, and cleared the back of some produce boxes, and gestured for the Doctor lay Julie there. Martha joined her there. Ward climbed into the driver's seat, and the Doctor occupied the passenger's seat, and they drove silently for ten minutes.

They turned left off the road, onto the grounds of a Bed and Breakfast, called the Meadowtown Inn. Ward led them in through a back door, then down a flight of stairs into what appeared to be living quarters – salon, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms. Ward asked the Doctor to deposit Julie on a bed in the spare room. The Doctor obliged, then shooed everyone out of the room, including himself, and shut the door.

"This is a small-scale Jauneoeil infiltration," said the Doctor, the three of them gathered in the short hallway outside the door.

"A what?" asked Ward.

"Jaunoeil," the Doctor said. "They're an alien species… scavengers."

"Excuse me? Aliens?"

"Yes," the Doctor told him. "Aliens. It's kind of what we do."

"I wasn't kidding when I said I worked for UNIT," Martha told him. "Are you familiar with that name?"

"I thought it was a myth," Ward said.

"It's not a myth. It's this country's official connection to the extra-terrestrial."

"So, we're turning her over to some secret government agency?"

"Not yet. The Doctor and I will take care of this ourselves. Failing that, we get UNIT involved."

"We won't fail," the Doctor insisted. "Because, fortunately, the Jaunoeil don't have the know-how nor the desire to do large-scale invasions, so I don't think we're dealing with anything other than a simple… well, targeting of Julie. And you, Ward."

"Aliens are targeting us? What the hell for?"

"You must have something they want," said the Doctor. "So, you own three vegetable stands that travel with the Hampshire Farmers' Market? And presumably a farm?"

"Actually, we own several working farms," Ward answered. "We follow the Market wherever it goes, rent out stalls, and hire people to run them for us."

"Do you also own this Inn?"

"Yes, and two others in the region."

"What else?"

"That's it," said Ward.

Martha and the Doctor looked at each other. "What would the Jaunoeil want with vegetables and… beds? Unless they're just looking for a nice place to stay when they stop off in Petersfield."

"Well, we've also been looking into investing in a fledgling company that's wetting its feet in fracking," Ward confessed.

"Looking into?" the Doctor said.

"We're friends with the owner of the company," he said. "He's been working with us, showing us brochures, having meetings with other possible investors and whatnot. It's quite promising."

"That's got to be it," the Doctor surmised. "The Jaunoeil use a fuel that is very close in composition to the fossil fuels of this planet. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd discovered they can use Earth-based petrol to power their vehicles. They must have done research and worked out that if they tried to infiltrate a big petrol company, they'd be discovered, and an aggressive anti-cyber-terrorism initiative would come at them at full-boar. But if they just dip their toe in at first, say, with someone with connections, get into your computer system, then worm their way into the fracking company…"

"This is ridiculous!" Ward blurted. "Have you gone completely crackers?"

"Wish I had," the Doctor said, absently. "Things would be a right sight easier, wouldn't they? Now, the alien speaking through Julie mentioned a virus, sent as a distraction."

"It did?" asked Ward. "You understood that rubbish?"

"I'm very, very good with foreign languages," the Doctor quipped. "Came top in my French class, in fact. Anyway, I'm not sure at this moment whether it means a computer virus, or a biological one. I'm leaning strongly toward a computer virus, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that they did this to Julie to keep you, Ward, occupied for a bit. I suppose it could be both…"

"Shit! So, what do I do?"

"Nothing, right now," the Doctor said. "I can run diagnostics on your computer in fairly short order, but Julie will be trickier. I have some chemicals and equipment I can use to identify her condition, if there is anything to identify, to detect blood anomalies that the Jaunoeil are capable of producing. But those techniques are extremely aggressive, and there's a good chance that she could be poisoned by the diagnostic process."

"Bloody great," Ward sighed.

"So, I think we should wait a few hours to see what happens," the Doctor said. "If her condition deteriorates, we'll… I guess, make a decision then."

"Then what?" asked Ward, worry colouring his features, even more than before.

"Well, eventually, if it keeps getting worse, we'll have to give her the diagnostic chemicals, danger of poison or no. But, for that, Dr. Jones and I will have to return to London, because I'll need my… er, my own laboratory, in order to mix the solution. If she remains stable, we can probably assume she's all right for now, and we'll check up on her again in another four hours. If her vitals show no sign of decline in twenty-four hours, we'll call her in-the-clear. Any virus they would douse her with would most likely be much faster-acting than that. But we'll leave you with our contact info, just in case she gets worse in the coming days or weeks."

"Okay," Ward agreed. "When will she wake up?"

"No idea," said the Doctor. "My guess would be, in the next two-to-four hours. When that happens, please call us, so we can attend to her. Don't be tempted to go in there, until I give you the okay. Okay?"

"Yeah," said Julie's husband, miserably.

"Honestly, there's a good chance that she's not got something you could catch… the seizure and speaking-in-tongues might have simply been a message for operatives they have placed around the Market. That's what we hope for. In which case, if we can shut down their infiltration, it's all moot, and those operatives can go home. And that's good."

Ward swallowed hard, and nodded, staring at the floor. "Okay. Thank you," he said meekly. Then he looked at the two of them, and asked, "You two are from London, yeah?"

"Yeah," Martha told him.

"Do you have a place to stay, here in town?"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other. They hadn't even considered this. "Oh… no," the Doctor said. "We'd been planning on going back to London tonight."

Only now was it occurring to them that their flirty frolic in the kitchen wasn't going to happen, and their lovely night of pretending to be a couple had been derailed. Their eyes met, and they both sighed with resignation.

"We always get pretty well-booked when the Farmers' Market comes to Petersfield, but if I'm not mistaken, we do have one last room left," Ward said, leading them back through the living quarters, toward the stairs. He crossed the inn's lobby and used the computer to check reservations. "Yep, the last one! Just down this hall, here. One king bed, mini-fridge, private bath. Wow, this is lucky – the last available room in the building. Free of charge, of course."

* * *

Martha and the Doctor borrowed Ward's van, and went back to the town square area to get her car. They returned to the inn in separate vehicles, and the Doctor, as promised, began running diagnostics on Ward's laptop. Though, the man protested that after it caught fire, the hard drive must be "fried."

"Fried it may be, but that doesn't mean I can't still get something from it."

The Doctor sat on the sofa in Ward and Julie's living room, and began to take readings, using the sonic screwdriver.

"What is that thing?" Ward wondered.

"Better if you don't know," Martha said.

"I'll take your word for it," said the farmer/innkeeper. "Want some tea?"

"That'd be nice, thanks," Martha said. "Both of us are white, with no sugar, please."

"Coming up," Ward said, leaving the room. He disappeared behind a kitchen door, and they heard water running, and mugs clanging.

After a couple of minutes, Martha, who was sitting on the sofa beside the Doctor, asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Well, the good news is that this machine has a fairly nasty, wormy, data-extracting virus that makes Earth-based spyware look like an abacus," he said.

"That's good news?"

"Yeah," he told her. "Because it means that it's pretty likely that it's not Julie who has the virus. She's probably fine… they just used her as a mouthpiece for something. Human tannoy."

Martha paused, and whispered. "Don't you think we should get her in for an MRI? I mean that seizure… and if they're, like, broadcasting a signal at her, then she might have some brain damage."

"Possibly," he said. "Let's see how she is when she wakes up. It's just possible that the Jaueoeil calibrated their frequency to be tolerable to a human brain. They're thieves and scavengers, but they don't have any interest in harming anyone."

She sighed, and sat back on the sofa. "Life with you is weird."

"Yeah, but you knew that," he said, absently. Then he looked at her, decidedly non-absently, through the lenses of his spectacles. "Should we talk about it?"

"What?"

"Life with me?"

She looked at him with sadness, tedium and annoyance. "Doctor."

"Okay," he said. "Sorry."

"We talked about taking stock, just before all hell broke loose," she said. "I'm willing to do that. More than willing. But now is not the time."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked her, his eyes serious and penetrating.

"Yes," she answered, frowning, a bit confused about the sudden gravity.

"Okay, then," he said. "Now, to answer your question, what I'm going to do is use the remains of the Jaunoeil signal to weave some nasty malware of my own, and launch a counter-attack, and let them know I'm here."

For the next few minutes, the Doctor alternated between doing crazy intricate things with the computer's circuit board, and adjusting the sonic screwdriver. Then, Ward entered the living room with two cups of tea, white with no sugar.

"Ward, do you think I could use the computer up at the front desk?" the Doctor asked. "Or… if you have another computer…"

Ward said cautiously, "I do have another laptop."

"I've isolated the frequency they're using. I just need something to write software on."

Ward disappeared for thirty seconds, and came back with another laptop. The Doctor was quick to fire it up, and begin clicking about. He narrated a bit of what he was doing… the only thing Martha understood was that he was transferring onto it the data now stored in the sonic screwdriver, that he'd taken from the fried circuit board.

Ward's phone rang in his pocket, and he answered it, "Oh, shit! I completely forgot!" he exclaimed. He cut off the call, and then said to Martha and the Doctor, "That was the guy who runs our gourd stand at the Market. He's wondering if I'll still be available to load up what's left…"

"Yeah, go," the Doctor told him, waving him away, without looking at him. "We'll be fine."

"What about Jules?" asked the worried husband.

"I reckon we'll take her vitals at a little after five o'clock," Martha told him, gesturing toward the clock on the mantel.

"But what if she wakes up?"

"What if?" Martha asked him, shrugging. "If you're here when it happens, that's brilliant. If you're not, you'll be back in an hour and a half. We'll keep her company – don't worry."

* * *

Ward left the two of them in his living room, working with two of his computers. More accurately, the Doctor worked with two of his computers, slowly launching a code through a remote connection to the fried circuit board, to counteract the attack from the Jaunoeil. Martha refilled their tea.

When she brought the second cup, an hour after Ward's departure, she sat down beside him, and they both contemplated the silence for a few moments. Then, the Doctor said, "So, you don't think this is the time to _take stock_."

His voice jostled her out of her own train of thought, and she asked, not having heard what he'd said, "What?"

"Still think now is not the time to take stock?" he repeated the question, continuing to work, not really looking at her. "I asked you about it a bit ago, and you said you didn't think now was the time."

"Oh," she said. "Don't you think that's something we should do after we have been able to have our time together, and had a few days to get our wits about us?"

"Our time together? Well, here's the thing, Martha..."

And again, they were interrupted. A crashing noise came from the bedroom where Julie was resting.

The two of them hopped up immediately and made for the bedroom door. The Doctor got there first, and stumbled into the room.

They found that Julie was no longer on the bed, but on the floor on the other side of it, between the bed and a window, again, having a violent seizure. Only this time, she was lying underneath a night table and lamp she had pulled over as she'd fallen off the bed, and one dislodged drawer.

The Doctor knelt on the floor with Julie, and Martha crawled over the bed, leaned down and pulled the lamp out of the way, and the drawer and some of its contents. The Doctor pushed the piece of furniture upright, and then once more, turned Julie over onto her side, and waited for the seizure to stop.

When it did, ten seconds went by with no sound nor movement, and the Doctor laid her on her back again. Then, her eyes flew open just like before, her yellow irises projected light, and she spoke in the same language, with the same voice, as she had in the Market.

The Doctor listened, taking his glasses off his face, and putting them in his pocket. "They know I'm here," he said to Martha.

"Shit," she whispered, still kneeling on the bed.

He listened a bit more, then said, "They're retreating."

"What?"

When the monologue ceased, the Doctor looked up at Martha and said, "They're retreating. The transmission indicated that there's a counter-attack against their infiltration software, and that it cannot be of human origin – they suspect it's me. Or, they suspect it's a Time Lord operative who often acts as sentinel to the Earth."

Martha smiled. "Sentinel to the Earth?"

The Doctor pointed at Julie and said, "Their words, not mine. Anyway, for any of their own operatives who were listening, the order is to retreat and regroup."

"Regroup?"

"Yeah," the Doctor sighed. "I reckon they'll find some other way into siphoning off fossil fuels from your planet. Another extremely small-scale invasion."

"They're really not very stealthy about it," she commented.

"Maybe they'll learn their lesson for next time."

"So, do we have to find them? Work out what hapless private citizen will be attacked next, so we can stop them again?"

He looked up at her meaningfully. "We?"

A heady silence passed between them.

"Who are you?" asked a voice from the floor, breaking their mild stupor.

"Oh!" the Doctor responded, as Julie stared at him with her clear blue eyes, and a totally lucid look on her face. "I'm… I'm…"

"We're both doctors," Martha told her, standing up, and coming round the bed. She offered both of her hands to Julie. "Come on. Up you come… slowly."

The Doctor got out of the way, and Julie stood slowly, as Martha had advised. "Doctors?" she asked "Why?"

"You had a seizure at the Farmer's Market," Martha informed her, pushing her gently down into a sitting position on the bed. "Luckily, we were there, shopping. Happening by."

"A seizure?" Julie asked, her eyes open wide with surprise. "Are you kidding me?"

"No," the Doctor said. "You fell right over into your bell peppers display."

"Why don't I remember that?"

"Well…" the Doctor began.

"Where's Ward?" she asked.

"He went back to the Market to help pack up the gourds stand," Martha told her. "He'll probably be back in an hour or so."

"We should probably get in touch with him, to let him know she's conscious," the Doctor said. "He was worried he would miss it…"

Julie reached for her back pocket, then said, "Where's my mobile?"

"Oh, it fell out of your pocket in the lobby upstairs, when we were bringing you in," Martha said. "I picked it up. Hang on."

She dashed out to the living room coffee table, and picked up Julie's phone, and brought it back. When she returned to the spare bedroom, she found the Doctor taking Julie's pulse. Julie took the phone in her free hand and rang her husband.

After a brief exchange with Ward, during which he confirmed that she had, in fact, had a terrifying, foaming-at-the-mouth seizure at the Market, and that two strangers who were doctors had come to her rescue and perhaps saved her life, she cut off the call. The Doctor then stepped toward her and placed the fingertips of both hands on her neck, and began pressing.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking for swollen lymph nodes."

"Wait," she said, pushing his hands away. "I don't even know you."

"Will you let _me_ check?" Martha asked. "You look good, and you sound good, but we haven't taken vitals yet. And we really, really should, since…"

"…since you had a second seizure just now," the Doctor finished.

"I did?"

"Yes."

"Can't we call my regular doctor?"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other.

"Erm," Martha said. "Not really. Not in this case. You see, we're sort of… specialists."

"Specialists?"

"Yeah."

"Do you have credentials?"

Martha was thankful she'd gone to her car to get her purse. She returned with her UNIT ID badge, which identified her as an M.D., and Chief Medical Officer.

"Of UNIT?" asked Julie. "Do you think I'm stupid?."

The Doctor inhaled and exhaled hard, and with annoyance. And, over the next few minutes, Martha and Julie went round and round, with the former trying to convince the latter that UNIT was, in fact, real, and so was her medical experience.

After a moment of pause, Martha said, "Please let _one of us_ take vitals, Julie. We're not going to anything invasive."

"Just touch me," Julie confirmed, half question, half annoyed statement.

"Well… yeah."

Julie sighed. "Fine. You do it. _He_ can leave."

The Doctor held up his hands in disarmed fashion, and left the room. "Shout if you need anything."

* * *

Fifteen minutes or so passed, and Martha emerged from the bedroom, and said, "She seems fine, except her blood pressure was low when I first took it. When I took it again, it had gone up a bit."

"It took you fifteen minutes to take vitals?"

"No," Martha reported. "We chatted a bit. Did you know she and Ward have been married since they were seventeen?"

He chuckled. "No, of course not! How would I know that?"

"She asked how long you and I had been together," Martha said, almost at a whisper.

"And?"

"It's almost like a programmed response at this stage, to deny to people that we're together," she told him. "But I stopped myself, and told her, six months."

He nodded with approval. "Good. Might as well still play the game, eh?"

"That's what I reckoned," she said with a little smile.

"So, her blood pressure is low, but it will probably continue to go up," he said.

She nodded in assent. "I expect she's exhausted, though. She asked just to be left to sleep."

"She _ought_ to be exhausted," he commented. Then he sucked in air, and reported, "I don't think we can rule out hypoxia."

"I was thinking that, too. I mean, I don't know what the Jaunoeil did to her exactly, physiologically, but with the hypotension, the seizure and the exhaustion…"

"Yeah."

"We should probably take her blood pressure again in a couple of hours, and then a couple hours after that, but… I mean, do you think we really need to check on her vitals every four hours through the night? Shouldn't we just let her sleep, and maybe check in tomorrow?"

"Actually, yeah, that would probably be fine," he admitted. "She probably needs the rest more than the attention, frankly."

"For now, anyway. Long as her BP goes up. Tomorrow might be a different story, though."

"Mm-hm."

"I told her about the Jaunoeil," she said, a bit sheepishly. "Since she knows I'm UNIT, I figured she was probably wondering about the _alien_ part of all this anyhow."

"And?"

"Pretty sure she thinks I'm a nutter. Probably you, too."

"Well," he sighed. " _That_ , unfortunately, is part of what we do."

"We?" she asked.

A few minutes of silence saw them just sitting on the sofa, staring into space. Then, Martha said, "I have to say, it's pretty weird that the Jaunoeil would just _retreat_ like that."

"Actually, it's very like them," he told her. "Like I said, they're scavengers. Almost parasites. They lie, cheat and steal, for their own gain. It's their culture. It's their way. Rather than work for it, they do it all underhanded-like. But the good news about that is, when cheating becomes too much work, they give up. And after I launched the counterattack at them, they realised it was me…"

"…and figured that they could either fight _the Doctor_ , or just try to worm in someplace else."

"Yep."

"I guess I could see that," she said. "I've done the same thing myself."

"Eh?"

"Retreat, rather than fight you," she said, softly.

"Mm," he said, non-committally. Then, "Speaking of which…"

Ward burst through the door just then, and the Doctor sighed, again with annoyance.

"That was quick!" Martha remarked.

"I jetted back from the Market on my mate's motorbike," he said. "Left them with the van – they can clean up themselves. Where is she?"

"In the spare room, right where you left her," the Doctor said.

Ward disappeared into the spare bedroom, and emerged two minutes later. "She wants to be left alone."

"Yeah," Martha said. "She's probably going to be fine, but we're thinking she might have had a temporary lack of oxygen to the brain, while the Jaunoeil were transmitting through her."

"Great!" Ward cried out. "So now what?"

"Well, we think we should monitor her blood pressure over the next few hours," Martha explained. "And as long as it goes up steadily, then we should be able to leave her alone for the rest of the night, and not have to take her vitals every four hours."

"Okay," Ward said. "If her blood pressure goes up…"

"It means she's returning to normal, the oxygen deprivation is not continuing," Martha said. "Though, Ward, we are going to suggest that you get her in for an MRI in the next few days, just to make sure there's no brain damage."

Ward exhaled hard, and moaned, "Oh, God."

"It's just a precaution," the Doctor said. "On the up-side, we're ninety-nine per cent certain that she doesn't have anything contagious, so… there's that."

Ward nodded, swallowing down some strong emotion.

"If you'd like, I can arrange for her to have one done at UNIT," she said. "I can do it myself, in fact. That would prevent you from having to make up a story about what happened to her. Only trouble is, you'll have to come to London."

"I'll give it some thought, thanks," he said.

"Meanwhile," the Doctor said. "Do you know of a medical supply store in the area?"

* * *

The Doctor and Martha drove back into Petersfield to a medical supply store, to buy a sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope, so as to assess Julie's blood pressure more accurately than the estimates Martha had been taking. Checking for pulses at the major arteries was an okay way to test blood pressure in a pinch, but it was hardly precise.

On the drive back to the inn, the Doctor began to contemplate the next few hours. They would check Julie's blood pressure a couple of times, and assuming everything was all right, they would have the rest of the evening to themselves in Hampshire.

"If Julie's all right for the night," he said. "You and I might actually get to have our evening."

She smiled. "Yeah! Maybe not what we planned, but… I'm sure there's a nice restaurant we can go to, and a park we can stroll in or something."

"I'll look into restaurants in the area it while you're with Julie," he said. "I'll let you take care of her, since she doesn't seem to want me near her."

"It's probably not personal," Martha assured him. "It's just, you're a man, and you're a stranger, doctor or no."

"I know. I get it. That's why… restaurants. Maybe French? Japanese?"

"Either one," she said. "It's not a flirty frolic in the kitchen, but it'll do."

After a minute's silence or two, he said, "So, I have a question, then."

"What's that?" she asked, smiling, but not taking her eyes off the road.

"You've put me off twice already, but… Martha, do you _still_ think this is not the best time to take stock? Talk about what's next for us?"

"Doctor…" she groaned.

"Because, I think you haven't really thought it through." He stared straight ahead.

"How so?"

"Well, are we agreed that we need to stay in town at least until tomorrow morning, for Julie's sake?"

"Yes," she replied.

He sighed. "Okay. So, we're planning on having a nice dinner and stroll in a park, and we're resuming with pretending at being a couple. Just this once, before we… what? Possibly part ways forever?"

She sighed, with difficulty. "Erm… yeah… I guess. Doctor…"

"And then after that, we're coming back," he continued, ploughing through whatever it was she had to say. Though, his voice was soft and dreamy. "To a plush bed and breakfast, where we have a room reserved, with a king-sized bed."

"Oh. Yeah."

"So, exactly how _coy_ are we going to be about this?"

* * *

 **A wonderful, of loaded, question, wouldn't you say? ;-)**

 **Don't forget to review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**OMG, you guys, I can't believe it's been well over a month since I've posted! I've been struggling with LIFE, and also this chapter. It seems weird, but once I set up the "well, I guess we better shag," scenario I wasn't sure how to proceed! I mean, I knew of one thing that needed to get done in this chapter (tee-hee) but how to get there was a different matter. This was one of those times when I could have edited and edited until the cows came home, but it was never going to be right, so... here goes. And my good friend Miggs assures me that the chapter isn't "dorky," as I had thought. So, win.**

 **A couple of the reviews were expressing delight at the fact that it's the Doctor pursuing Martha now, pressing the issue a little bit, as opposed to how things used to be. I didn't really conceive of it that way in my mind, so I guess I didn't do a great job of illustrating what I wanted to. So, therefore, hopefully what you'll see in the first quarter (or so) of this chapter is, as the Doctor points out, it really is impractical for them to spend the evening the way they might, if they just proceeded as normal.**

 **Well, I suppose you know what might be coming next for our favorite pair... :-D**

* * *

PART 4

A trip to a medical supply store, and a pleasing agenda for the next few hours. And on the drive back to the inn, the Doctor began to contemplate those hours. They would check Julie's blood pressure a couple of times, and assuming everything was on the up-and-up, so to speak, they would have the rest of their time in Hampshire to themselves.

"If Julie's all right for the night," he said. "You and I might actually get to have our evening."

She smiled. "Yeah! Maybe not what we planned, but… I'm sure there's a nice restaurant we can go to, and a park we can stroll in or something."

After a minute's silence or two, he said, "So, I have a question, then."

"What's that?" she asked, smiling, but not taking her eyes off the road.

"You've put me off twice already, but… Martha, do you _still_ think this is not the best time to take stock? Talk about what's next for us?"

"Doctor…" she groaned.

"Because, I think you haven't really thought it through." He stared straight ahead.

"Really? How so?"

"Well, are we agreed that we need to stay in town at least until tomorrow morning, for Julie's sake?"

"Yes," she replied.

He sighed. "Okay. So, we're planning on having a nice dinner and stroll in a park, and we're resuming with pretending at being a couple. Just this once, before we… what? Part ways forever? And then after that, we're coming back, to a plush inn, where we have a room reserved, with a king-sized bed."

"Oh. Yeah."

"So, exactly how _coy_ are we going to be about this?"

Martha realised, all at once, what he had been trying to tell her, ever since Ward had reserved for them the last room at the inn for the night. He had asked her several times whether she wanted to "take stock" now, instead of later, and she had, as he'd said, put him off (though, they'd also been interrupted once or twice).

She now understood how obtuse she had been.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Eventually, she gave a short, awkward laugh. "I have no idea how to answer that."

The Doctor now spoke at a million miles per minute. "Because, Ward was clear: that room he's got for us, it's the last one in the building. And, I mean, I suppose we could call other inns and hotels in the area, to see if there's another room open somewhere, but does either of us really want to do that? We could put on a show of phoning a few places, and making up some daft reasons not to take the rooms they have available, if there are any, but that all sounds like a bloody great waste of time, don't you agree?"

"Erm, yeah," Martha said, seeming almost surprised at the revelation.

"And after making those calls, we'll go to dinner, and worry about it the whole time. We _could_ sit, preoccupied with the bed-and-breakfast situation – although, I can't really see _breakfast_ being a highly worrying endeavour, to be honest. It's really the _bed_ part. And we could spend the meal wondering what, if anything, to do about it. Because, it _could_ be awkward."

"Right."

He was silent for a minute or so, then spoke again.

"Because, it's one thing to pretend at being a couple, and get in a car and go to a market, hold hands, and plan ahead for a flirty frolic. It's quite another thing to pretend to be a couple in bed. Hence the coyness – I get it."

"Mm-hm," she said, lamely.

"So, when we get back to that room, we _could_ hem and haw about possibly going back to London tonight, because it might be more 'practical,', what with the fact that neither one of us has brought any toiletries or nightclothes. I _could_ offer to sleep on the floor, and you could tell me, 'oh, no, no, that's not necessary, because we're mature adults and we've been down this road together before.' And, we _could_ go all 1969, and crawl into bed sheepishly beside one another, trying to pretend it's not killing us both, and say a terse 'good night.' We could lie in the dark, side-by-side, tense, nervous, desirous, angry with ourselves, trying desperately not to move, so as to let the other know that we're still awake, or God forbid, _touch_ each other under the covers."

Martha let out a quick exhale through pursed lips, to show that she was _harrowed_ by what he was saying.

But he was absolutely right. If things went the way they usually did, and/or the way she had been driving things since the room was reserved, this was what the night had in store. It would be a repeat of their entire stint in 1969, which had very nearly done her in.

"But I've got to be honest, Martha," he said. "All of that sounds _exhausting._ "

"Yeah," she responded quietly. "It does." Because, she knew that brand of exhaustion quite well.

Another longish silence filled the car, and then the Doctor said, "So, I just want you to know… if you leave me to my own devices, I'm not doing any of that stuff. The _coy_ stuff, I mean. Bugger that."

"Okay," she said, a bit too business-like for the situation. "Understood."

"I mean, you should, of course, feel free to point me in whatever direction you'd like, and I won't argue. But I really don't fancy being all cute and adolescent about this. I'm too old. And sorry, but… well, so are you."

"Yeah," she replied, practically at a whisper.

And the wheels began to turn…

* * *

As expected, Julie's blood pressure showed signs of steadily rising, and that was a good thing. Though, as for the lady herself, all she wanted to do was sleep, and was growing irritable with what she felt was "constant monitoring."

So, the Doctor and Martha bade her and Ward a good evening, and at 6:00 p.m., they were free for the night.

They made their way back up the stairs to the lobby, and the Doctor asked, "So, while you were with Julie, I did some checking. There's a little sushi place not too far from here. The reviews say it's a great place for a date – good wine list, fish tanks, low light, secluded seating possibilities…"

"That sounds good, but, actually, Doctor, I was thinking, maybe of something else," she said, and she made for the front door of the inn, toward where her car was parked.

"Okay," he said. "Whatever you'd like."

They both hopped in, and she drove them half a mile or so to a small grocery she'd seen, while she'd been deep in thought, on the way back from the medical supply store. In contemplating the Doctor's question about _coyness_ , and his declaration that he wasn't planning on displaying any, she realised she was actually terrified. Excited, but terrified. She and the Doctor had come to Hampshire to _pretend_ at couplehood, at romance, at something more than the possibly doomed friendship/relationship that they actually had. But then, as the day had worn on, it looked like they might have some hope at something real. But it was clear, at least to her, that they'd have to take it one step at a time.

And then a combination of events had made her feel as though she'd been hurled down the entire flight of stairs: the Jaunoeil attack on Julie, their monitoring of her overnight, her marked improvement, and Ward's securing the last room for them. And then, of course, the Doctor's musings on the subject of how bloody _tediously_ (and possibly destructively) the night might pass if they didn't swallow their inhibitions.

But seeing the little grocery had given her an idea. She didn't want to be hurled down the stairs, exactly, but she did want to descend in a timely fashion.

"What's this?" the Doctor asked, as she parked, and he looked up at the store's sign.

"I thought we could pick up some cheese, some fruit, some wine, and have a picnic. I saw a park, not too far away."

"Instead of a posh restaurant?" he asked, with a smirk.

"Yeah. Is that okay?"

He smiled. "It's brilliant."

Fifteen minutes later, they left the store with a selection of, as Martha had said, cheese, fruit, wine, and two sandwiches for good measure, and were headed to a park, just outside of Petersfield. Martha always kept a thick blanket in the boot of her car, so she carried it, while the Doctor transported two grocery sacks to a spot in the park where the grass was thick, and a patch of trees formed crescent-shaped alcove. There were some people in the area; a small group of young men playing an informal game of rugby, a couple of families with children, a few couples, and some joggers.

Martha spread out the blanket, and the two of them sat, and began to unpack the bags. She peeled back the top of the packet of cheese cubes, and took the lid off the pre-packaged bowl of strawberries, grapes and diced melon. He looked about to make sure no-one was watching, and then popped the cork out of the wine using the sonic screwdriver.

"Seriously?" she asked, eyeing him.

He shrugged. "I don't carry a corkscrew in my jacket pocket."

He poured the wine into clear plastic tumblers, and they toasted, "Second chances." Then they nestled the cups in the thick grass, and unwrapped their sandwiches. For a few minutes, they partook, and watched rugby.

After a few bites, the Doctor set the sandwich aside, and asked, "So, why this? Why not the sexy, dimly-lit restaurant?"

"Because," she answered, sheepishly, now also putting her own sandwich aside. "I started out wanting to take this journey with you, at a leisurely pace, if at all. And it looks like we won't have that chance."

"Oh, Martha. I'm sorry if I made you feel like you can't…" he began. Then he started again. "You know we don't have to…"

She pressed a finger to his lips. "Hush. Yes, we do. We both know it. Fate has intervened, it would seem. It's forced our hands. The alternative is… well, you described it perfectly. And it's so unthinkably dreary and disappointing, it doesn't even bear saying.

 _Fate has intervened._ The Doctor got a frisson from this statement, remembering who it truly was that had intervened, and brought them to this point. His future… a letter… the desire for closure, no intention of _his_ being involved at all, and yet, here he was, playing with fire...

Though it didn't honestly seem as though there was much choice, as Martha had confirmed. Things being what they were, events had, indeed, _forced their hands._

She continued, "So, if we're going to be _not coy_ in a little while, then I'm going to have to practice being _not coy_ now."

"Okay. What does that mean?" he wondered. The smirk was back.

"Well, in a restaurant, I couldn't do _this._ "

And then she did something that surprised him so much, he couldn't react for about ten seconds.

She moved to a kneeling position, then threw one leg over his lap and rested her bum on his thighs. He braced himself against his hands, behind him, and his jaw dropped open a bit. She took the opportunity to reach over and pluck a cube of Gouda from the packet, and pop it in his mouth.

And then, he stared at her, amused, excited, and a bit shocked, as he chewed. She smiled, and draped both arms over his shoulders.

"Well, you could," he said, swallowing. "But then we'd be _those_ people."

"Couples who nauseate everyone."

"Yep."

"Well, we still might be those people, but we'll be doing it in open air, with far fewer witnesses."

She pressed her lips to his, and the Doctor chuckled slightly against the kiss.

She had been nervous to do this – both the lap and the kiss, but went for it with deft gusto.

And she was not surprised to feel inflamed by this event, but she _was_ surprised that along with that fire, there was also _calm._ There was comfort, yes, but more importantly, there was certainty, and empowerment. These were things she had very rarely felt in the Doctor's presence, in spite of how fiercely she loved him.

It was not their first kiss, of course. There was the first one, the "genetic transfer," way back in the hospital on the moon. But, even as recently as this morning, he had kissed her in her parlour – that felt like _years_ ago now, considering all that had happened since then. That kiss had ultimately been frustrating, because they'd withdrawn from it the moment they felt any heat rising. Both kisses had been rather superficial, and had only scratched at the surface of what motivated them.

But this one was different. This one held portents, promises and potential. This was _real._

And she could feel her anxiety melting away. Half an hour before, she'd felt that tonight's prospects were, while appealing, quite nerve-wracking. But with just this perching upon his lap, and this one kiss, and a few well-placed laughs and sighs, she sank into it. She understood the shape of things, the shape of him; his chest and legs, his neck and cheeks, as she placed her hand on one side of his face, and slid them down over his jugular, then to the back of his head, to _claim_ the kiss. She made contact with him, with the possibilities, with the night's crackling enthusiasm, and she began to realise what she was really in for.

And she liked that. A lot.

But she also understood now that she was in big, big trouble.

She pulled away from him, and leaned back, plucking two cubes of melon from the plastic container. She put one in his mouth, one in hers, and smiled. She asked, "So, did you set this thing up with Ward and Julie, so we'd be cornered into spending the night together?"

"I swear, I did not," he assured her, chewing, though he knew it wasn't a genuine question.

"Because, I don't want to boast, but a fair few guys have tried to get me into bed," she said. "But as techniques go, this has to be the most elaborate I've ever seen."

He narrowed his eyes. "Mind you, I'm not entirely sure, because it's been… well, a really long time," he said. "But I think that if I were to actually try on some sort of seduction scene, there would be no foaming-at-the-mouth, there wouldn't be vegetables involved, and I would definitely have kicked the aliens' arse in a much more spectacular way."

"Well, now. I find you plenty spectacular," she whispered in his ear. Then she licked the edge of the ear subtly, and she felt him shudder, and pull in a quick breath, with the sensation. "Just sitting on a sofa, glasses on, concentration all over your face, that screwdriver buzzing away at a circuit board. Just being brilliant, nerdy, you."

"You can't call me nerdy," he said, labouriously. His breathing was hampered by her soft licks and kisses just below his ear. "I'm a Time Lord. Nerdy is our 'cool'."

"A very good way to put it," she said, continuing down his neck. "In that case, you are the coolest guy I've ever met."

She then sat up straight, and fed them each a cheese cube again, and then took a long sip of wine, before giving him one as well. The combination felt buttery in her mouth, and she savoured it, while considering him once more.

He swallowed, and she watched his Adam's apple bob. This drew attention to the impeccable, stylish, brown and blue silk tie, knotted at his throat, and the tightly-buttoned light blue dress shirt behind it. She smiled mischievously, as though someone had just heaped three scoops of ice cream into her bowl. She pulled the tie loose by about an inch, then unbuttoned the collar. She spread open the fabric, and planted an open-mouthed kiss on his neck, on the newly-exposed flesh.

He groaned, which gave way to a nervous laugh. His head lolled back, more or less involuntarily, and he closed his eyes, briefly, against the intense sensation.

She sighed with desire and delight – it was a calculated move. And that was when she felt the first stirrings, the first hints of hardness, pressing against her leg. It made her smile, though he couldn't see it.

She trailed her wet kisses all the way up his neck, on the other side, just underneath where his collar had touched him, until she'd laid it open. Her hands went to the top two buttons of his suit coat, the only two regularly fastened, and she unfastened them. She devoured his mouth again, plunging her tongue inside, while sneaking her right hand inside his coat, first across the collar, then down the left side of his chest and stomach. After feeling the sinews through his shirt's fabric, she already tasted a bit of addiction. He felt strong and urgent and broad, and she knew she had to touch him, skin-on-skin. She untucked his shirt in the back, and slid her hand up inside, massaging the skin, marvelling at the heat, and the energy she could almost feel radiating from him.

The whole sensory experience was magnificent; it was as though she had waited decades for these moments. The way their mouths interplayed was hungry, but seamless. The snog of a lifetime continued for a few minutes, with Martha desperately desiring, but not daring, to press on, open him (and herself) up further. Behind her, she heard the tutting of a woman happening by.

"Bloody hell," she groaned. "Get a room."

"We have one," Martha said breathlessly, pulling away from a heady, intoxicating kiss. Then, she rather absently stroked the bulge in the front of his trousers, only for a few seconds. "We're just not quite ready to use it yet."

In response to her touch, he groaned, and his eyes slid shut,

"Oh, sorry," she lilted, sounding anything but sorry. "Are you okay with that?"

He half-laughed, half-growled, "Absolutely. Why wouldn't I be?"

She smirked, sitting up straight again. "Well, you know, as I said, I didn't want to be thrown down the entire flight of stairs, without really knowing what's at the bottom. I wanted to take it step by step. So, we can't just rush off, back to the inn, straight away."

"Right."

"And to that end, Doctor, there are things I feel I should ask," she said, almost melodically.

"Fire away," he said.

She smiled sheepishly. "Well, is there anything I need to know about shagging a Time Lord?"

He smiled with amusement. "Like what?"

"I don't know, you tell me!"

"Like, will our parts match up? Might I accidentally turn inside out and fall into the vortex whilst in the throes of pleasure? Do I mentally name all the moons of Crefellus, of which there are more than seven hundred, so as to occupy my mind, and not allow the whole thing to end too quickly?"

She laughed. "As for example."

"Well, the answers are, yes, no, and… sometimes."

"Blimey," she commented. "Most guys just think about football."

"I said _occupy my mind_ , not put me to sleep."

She laughed again. "Okay. How long's it been for you?"

He let out a whistle of a sigh, a high-note, losing pitch as it escaped through his lips. "I don't honestly know," he said. "Three, maybe four hundred years."

"Wow," she said. "I had a two-year dry-spell while travelling with you and then running from the Master. And I thought _that_ was a long time."

He gave another one of those half-growl, half-laughs. "You don't know what a long time is."

"Why so long? Clearly you have an interest…"

"But I haven't always had," he said. "Regeneration is a funny thing. Traits and talents come and go. As do desires."

"To not feel that sort of desire," she mused, pressing her hand against the bulge again. "Must be very freeing."

Once more, he groaned, while his whole body tightened. "Indeed it is, Dr. Jones," he responded, eyes narrowed at her. "Indeed it is. But not as much fun."

"All right, well, seeing as how it's been such a wildly long time since you've… let's say, descended that treacherous staircase," she said running her fingers through his gorgeous hair, with just the right amount of fingernail dragging across his scalp. "What questions do you have for me? I mean, if you're rusty, you may need a bit of..."

"What? Advice?"

"Maybe."

He gave her a bemused smile. "Cheeky."

"Yes. But not without purpose."

He chuckled, and regarded her for a long minute. Then, with a sharp exhale, he said, "Okay, well, maybe I am a bit rusty. And to be honest, I don't think I've ever had an _encounter_ on this planet, or even with a human… or in this era."

"That seems unlikely."

"Doesn't it just?" he mused.

"So, what do you want to know? Like say, will I become an obsessed, clingy girlfriend-type in the morning? Does my bra clasp in the front or back? Do I respond favourably to coarse and graphic language?"

He smiled. "As for example."

"Well, the answers are no, the back, and yes."

"Good to know," he said. Then he sighed. "I suppose the first thing I should ask you is… are you sure about all this?"

"I thought we covered that."

"So, because I had a good ramble about how painful it would be to pretend all night, in close quarters, that we don't want to tear each other's clothes off, you agree that we have no choice? I mean, you're not just going along with this because I got all _verbose_ and _resolute_ in the car, are you?"

She draped her arms over his shoulder and pressed her forehead against his. "I'm sure. I'm more than sure," she said. "Doctor, apart from _brilliant_ and _handsome_ , I would say that _verbose_ and _resolute_ are the two best words for describing you. I'm used to your being both of those things. I can handle you."

"All right. Very well-said."

"I'm not a teen-ager, Doctor. I don't just get _talked_ into sex. Not unless I already _really really_ want it," she said to him, her voice low and breathy, planting another kiss on his lips. He latched onto the kiss, deepening it, making it burn. He sat up straight and curled his right hand round the side of her neck, stroking the underside of her chin with his thumb.

"Do you?" he mused when she pulled away, though their faces were only a couple of centimetres apart. He softly kissed the area under her chin, where his thumb had been a few moments before.

"God, yes," she breathed, tilting her head back.

He let the same hand wander up the back of her head, and tugged her hair, pulling her head to the left. It was hard enough to hurt just a little, and send shockwaves through her body. When his lips clasped onto the skin of her neck, and his tongue moved over the sensitive flesh, she moaned hard, and dug the fingernails of both hands into his shoulders.

Along a path that led behind the crescent of trees in which they were sitting, they heard an adolescent boy's voice say, "Whoa!"

A motherly voice then instructed, "Just... keep walking."

"The only question that remains now is," the Doctor began, whispering against her skin. "Then, why the hell are we still here?"

"I don't know anymore."

"I think this picnic is over, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You pack up the food, and I'll fold the blanket."

* * *

Twilight was falling, as was a bit of rain now, as they made their way back to the inn.

Martha tried not to speed. She tried to keep her eyes on the road, her feelings in check, her concentration above the waist.

But it wasn't easy.

They tried not to _run_ from the car to the front entrance of Ward and Julie's bed and breakfast, and contented themselves walking quickly, hand-in-hand.

But it was really difficult.

The Doctor tried not to be short with the receptionist in asking for their key, and Martha tried to look nonchalant as she perused the magazines by the front desk. They tried to be polite as the young lady looked up and confirmed their reservation, and the fact that they did not need to register a credit card number with them, and then went through all of the inn's amenities, and described when and where they had their twice-daily champagne receptions with hors d'oeuvres made from locally-raised foods…

But it was nigh on impossible.

Because after they made their way down the hall and located their room, with the last vestiges of her sanity, while the Doctor fumbled with the lock and key, and Martha compulsively latched onto his arm, and whispered, "Please hurry," she realised something.

She'd crawled into his lap in the park, in order to ease into the evening's adventure – that was true. What she had ended up doing was ensuring that when they arrived in their room, there would be no moment of awkwardness, no interval between the door and the bed in which they look at each other, and ask, "Now what?"

Because as things now were, she knew what would happen.

As soon as that door was shut behind them, there would be no room for lingering looks nor the _coyness_ that the Doctor so dreaded. There could be only combustion, burning through any hesitation or scruples.

And so there was.

The Doctor shed his jacket as soon as he was in the room, and threw it over an armchair. Then he turned on her quickly, and in one move, he locked the door, and pinned her to it. She found the back of her head cradled in the concave edge of a door panel, and her senses pummelled by sensation. For a few moments, his mouth sucking and biting at the point where her neck meets her shoulder, clouded her vision, and she swooned helplessly. She felt prickles and tingles everywhere that had nerves, and her arms each seemed to weigh tonnes.

As her head cleared, her hands instinctively grabbed for flesh. She had already untucked his shirt, so her fingers crawled inside once more and splayed over the skin of his back. Her electric touch gave him frissons, and waves of heat, both. He pulled away from her momentarily to tug his tie the rest of the way free, and wrench it over his head and toss it to the floor. Then his lips smashed against hers, and she groaned with the satisfaction of it, of being wanted, grabbed-for, pressed between the man she loved and a door that would not budge.

Her hands now needed more… just _more._ So, she pulled at the buttons of his shirt, and in short order, and between frenetic kisses, all of the buttons were undone, and the Doctor deftly unfastened the shirt's cuffs, and he shrugged it off, onto the floor, before insinuating his fingertips beneath the shirttail of her powder blue tank top. Like her, his hands sought flesh, and practically burned upon contacting her hot skin. His hands splayed over her middle, round her waist, just feeling, searching… After a few moments, he tugged upward on her top, and stepped back from her as he pulled it over her head, and off, leaving her in a satin bra, of a shade that matched her tank top almost exactly.

Their lips met once again, hard and fast, and that was when they heard voices down the hall, and were reminded that they were not, in fact, all alone together inside a vehicle isolated within the confines of infinite space. They were in a bed and breakfast in Hampshire, separated from the rest of the universe by literally two inches' worth of non-TARDIS-exterior wood.

The voices came closer, and much to their annoyance, the laughing, talking and joking, it all stopped just outside their room. There were, as far as they could tell, two men and two women. They seemed to be talking about the afternoon's attempt at learning country line dancing, and wondering if they would, indeed, be good enough to go out tonight and strut their stuff at some pub in town called _The Cactus._ The lovers assumed that one of the couples had a room right across the hall from theirs, and that in a matter of a minute or so, the four line-dancers would retire to their separate quarters…

So, they tried not to let it distract them from one another. And indeed, Martha wondered at this moment if there was any force on Earth, save for the Doctor himself, that could stop her feeling and wanting now.

For, they were well past the point of no return. They were in the throes of a desperation that had been part of the rhythm of both of their lives for far too long.

The Doctor's hands were currently pressed possessively against the door on either side of her, and his lips and tongue alternating between her mouth and neck. And just as the voices outside erupted into gales of obnoxious laughter, the Doctor, again, took a step back, smirked at the noise in the hallway, and fell to his knees.

From there, he reached up and unfastened the button at the front of Martha's khaki capris, and pulled down the zip. He kissed the flesh across her stomach that had become exposed, and for good measure, latched onto the white lace waistband with his teeth and snapped it back against her skin. He then pulled the tan-coloured garment all the way down to her ankles and, leaning on the door, she stepped out of them. He tossed them onto the same pile where their shirts had landed, and then looked up at her with fire and mischief in his eyes.

She nearly passed out from the heady rush this gave her, and she closed her eyes and let the back of her head knock against the door. When she did, she heard the voices outside stop, and a woman ask, rather quietly, "What was that?" But in a moment, the line-dancing foursome began talking again.

The Doctor tugged at the back of Martha's right knee, coaxing her to drape it over his shoulder. From there, he closed his mouth over the cleft between her legs, soaked white satin fabric and all. With this tongue, he quickly probed at her clit with two gentle jabs, and she nearly bit her bottom lip off with the impact. Her whole body and mind were doing flips at this one tiny act, and she was trying not to let out the surprised half-moan, half-scream that was waiting just below the surface.

He used one hand to push aside that pesky piece of material separating him from her totally bare flesh. He used the other hand to latch onto her bum, and once again, his mouth closed over her swollen, slick opening, only this time, with nothing in-between. And when his tongue probed her clit, it was not in a quick, teasing gesture. It was in solid, rhythmic, full-contact strokes, such that there could only be one goal. She whispered his name as her head swam, her vision blurred, her whole body seemed to become irrelevant, except for the shockwave reverberating from between her legs, out to the extremities.

And then, she was just there... at the top of the hill she'd been climbing since the park. In the next few moments, she seemed to fly over it. Her thighs began to clamp together, her right hand found itself buried in his hair… she was coming hard. And as she did, that half-moan, half-scream could not be contained anymore, and it met the air in a hot burst of noise. A split second after, her left fist met the door behind her, and she found that the _thud_ was very satisfying to hear, as pleasure peaked, and her life, in its way, changed.

But, having heard Martha's climactic cry, and the thump against the door, their friends in the corridor again stopped talking, but then momentarily began to laugh.

"Oh, I see!" one of them said.

"Can we get you a cigarette, love?" one of the women called out, much to the delight of her mates.

"Oh, for the love of…" the Doctor groaned, standing up. He muttered at them, "Like there's nothing better to do than stand there and…"

With that, he grabbed Martha by the hand and swung her to his left, to the nearest piece of furniture: an oak desk. He took her by the waist and lifted her onto it. Her hands pulled immediately and desperately at his waistband, trying to unhook his trousers without ripping out the fastener. She wasn't unaware that these were the only clothes they had. They did still need to appear to be well-ordered, medically-minded folk in the morning, so she couldn't go pulling buttons and hooks and zips out of their stitching…

But she was feeling anything but well-ordered, and her hands shook, and her breath was short. He helped her with the hook, she undid the zip and thrust both hands inside his pants at the hips, to force them down to his thighs.

She leant back on her hands, displacing a pen cup and a wooden box of tea bags. Then, roughly, lower jaw jutting out, eyes penetrating like iron, he pulled her bum to the edge of the desk. He hooked his fingers through the sides of her knickers and tugged them down over her ankles, discarding them on the floor. And, though the movement itself was a bit fierce, she was more than ready for it, and he slid into her like polished chrome along silk. He dug his fingertips into her thighs, almost involuntarily, and both groaned with the anticipation – and the relief – of this moment.

She remained leant back, because for a few moments, she was too stricken to move. And she watched his eyes and body, and felt both, all over. He thrust inside hard and slow, then pulled away again, over and over… then again… and again… never looking away from her face. The low groans, guttural musings escaped with impunity, their names whispered back and forth with breathy abandon.

He never looked away, because anything showing on her face, any pain, pleasure, crisis, he wanted to see. And he did. He watched her mouth go slack with the disbelieving ecstasy of it, watched her cheeks and lips go pink, and watched her eyes slide shut as her body filled with fuel for another explosion…

He was claiming her…or rather, claiming this moment in her life, still somewhat aware that he was wrong to do so…

Nevertheless, he knew he was pervading every part of her, penetrating her body and mind, and in spite of himself, in spite of the possible consequences (to which she was still not privy), none of it was by accident. And as the steam rose, he braced his hands against the edge of the desk. Martha sat up straight then, and put her arms around his neck.

Their bodies were flush against each other now, and he sped up slightly, though he might have liked to keep things going slowly for a bit longer. But he wasn't made of stone, was he? They were both here for a reason, and that reason was love and fever, something that would not let them be completely calm in each other's presence, at least not anymore. He practically bit into her shoulder with the intensity growing in every bone. He thrust forward then out again, then forward… firmly, right to her core, exhaling heartily with each movement. The desk began to bump the wall, and they reckoned they could be heard by the line-dancing quartet, but they no longer cared.

And with a shudder, she squeezed his hips between her thighs, and made a grab for another enormous, rich release…

But he kept her hanging, and hanging and hanging… she seemed to sit there, trembling at the pinnacle for seconds upon seconds that grew longer and longer in between each full-bodied thrust. Her fingernails dug into his shoulder blades, her eyes clamped shut, and _at last_ , he gave her the stroke that let her come. She moaned loudly, and locked her legs around him, so, for a few moments, he couldn't move. He pulled back and looked at her with something wolfish in his eyes. Lust? Annoyance?

And from there, her body coasted down from the frenzy quite slowly, because, though she was still shivering from the climax, _he_ was not finished with her. As soon as the pressure from her thighs let up a bit, he began to move again. Forward and forward and forward, and with the recent crisis, her sensitivity caused a little spark each time he shoved inside. She gave a little hiccup with each stroke, and her eyes began to water.

She leaned back on her hands again, and this seemed only to intensify the sensation. He relished in this phenomenon, and put more power into his strokes, more fire behind his eyes…

She leaned back a bit further, resting on her elbows behind her, and with the change of position and his relentlessness, she couldn't help but be thrown into a third orgasm. This time, he was thrown in with her. The pulsations inside, her voice, her flushed, shuddering body… it all forced him forward one last time. And with a deep moan, he released into her, everything he had, in waves… in spasms… in long, eye-watering pulls of cathartic pleasure.

She sat up straight again, and they grasped at each other in recovery. At the same time, they heard laughter out in the hall. They had no idea whether the laughter had anything to do with _them,_ but it didn't matter. The whole thing was just irritating.

"Bloody line dancers," she whined into his skin, segueing into laying soft kisses across his shoulder.

"Yeah," he said breathlessly, apparently not yet ready to speak coherently.

They took another minute or so to climb down from their high, and Martha said, "It's been a long day. You know what I need?"

"Mm?"

"A shower."

"Good idea."

"Care to join me?" she asked, unhooking her bra in the back. She dropped on the floor next to where her knickers had landed.

He chuckled. "What am I going to say? No?"

He stepped back from her, and sat down in a nearby armchair, partly because he was momentarily not able to stand, and partly for the purpose of unlacing his shoes. From there, he removed his trousers and pants and trousers the rest of the way. Martha reached out for his hand, and he took it. They crossed the room naked together, stepped into the beautifully remodelled white bathroom, and shut the door behind them.

* * *

Over an hour later, they stepped out of the shower, a bit giddy, and slid into the soft white bathrobes that hung behind the door.

By now, it was pouring rain outside, which only added to the overall effect of the evening and its charms.

When they opened the door, and saw the mess of clothing they'd left all over the floor of their room, they both burst out laughing.

"Wow," Martha said. "It's like they've _splattered_ all over the floor. What did we do? Put them on a spinner?"

They set about picking up the debris, and attempting to fold and/or lay it out nicely.

"At least you were in clothes that look all right after a shaking-out," he commented, picking up his rumpled dress shirt from the floor.

"Well, if you didn't wear a suit every day of your life…"

"I wonder if they have a laundry service," he cut in, not having heard her.

"I'm sure they do," she said. Then she took a deep breath. "By the way, are you a bit hungry?"

"Yeah," he said, after a moment's contemplation. "We didn't finish our dinner, did we?"

"We can finish now," she said. "We've still got the stuff we bought."

"Why don't you go out to the car and get it, and I'll go to the front desk and ask for some plates, and perhaps an express laundry pick-up. Unless you'd rather switch - it's really chucking it down out there."

"Nope, that's fine," she said, moving toward the door. "See you in a minute."

* * *

And ten minutes later, the Doctor's suit was gone from the room, having been picked up by some sort of steward, who had also brought a clean, dry robe for Martha. The two of them sat down on the bed with two small plates, and the cheese, fruit, sandwiches and wine they'd bought earlier in the evening.

"Oh, I mentioned to the front-desk staff that we were disturbed a little while ago by people chattering and laughing loudly in the hallway," he said. "They said they knew who we were talking about, and that they'd be more vigilant about asking them to retire to their rooms, or use one of the house lounges for their antics."

"Okay," she said, eyebrows raised. "Thanks. They're bound to go out dancing again, and they have to come back sometime. And you and I, we can't stay sound-proofed in the shower all night, can we?"

And then she blushed, because what she said had betrayed the fact that, frankly, she was not ready to be finished for the evening.

"Indeed, not," he answered, having caught the innuendo full well. He sat back against the headboard with a little plate of strawberries, patted the bedspread beneath his bum, and mused, "Hm, it's funny. This all started because we knew we were going to have to share a bed."

"We didn't make it that far," she said, sheepishly, putting cubes of Gouda onto her plate.

"I think you saw to that," he said.

She looked at him then, and he was looking back, with one eyebrow cocked.

She smiled reluctantly. "Yeah, I did," she admitted. "I just wanted to…"

"I know," he said. "I get it. Ease in. Didn't want to get to the room, and think, 'wow, this is really bloody real… and we're going live, starting from zero!'"

"In a nutshell."

"Or maybe, do all of the evening ablutions, each waiting to see if the other would either make a move, or change their mind."

"Yeah, that too."

"To be honest, I think the evidence suggested that we would have been fine, even without scandalising people in the park" he said, chewing. "But it was _great_ fun. Great, cheeky fun."

"Good," she said.

"And, I got to see a very interesting side of Martha Jones," he added.

"You pretty much saw _all_ sides of Martha Jones today," she chuckled.

"That, I did," he said, with a smirk.

He lost himself a bit in thought then, because he really did feel as if he'd seen a new side of Martha Jones today. And this delighted every part of him. Delighted, electrified, brought alive…

Of course, he'd known she must have a lustful side (he'd been able to see that in her eyes, the entire time they travelled together), but to know the colours of that lust, how it manifested, how alive and breathing a thing it actually was…

It made him shudder.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah."

He relived the stunning moment when she crawled into his lap in the park. He relived that first kiss, after realising they were destined to have a passionate night together. He relived the first stirrings of arousal he'd felt, and the fireworks in his brain when she'd pressed her hand against his erection.

He relived, and felt the reverb in his body, each time he'd seen and heard her crash through orgasm… against the door, on the desk, in the shower…

He always knew that she was not a shrinking violet, nor a passive partner. He always knew that she lived, loved and learned with her whole body, with every fibre of her being. But now, he knew how it actually looked and felt to have her seize _desire_ with both hands, and drink heartily.

And if he had his way, he would be seeing new sides to her every day, forever. New facets of those sides, both the exciting and the mundane, and he couldn't wait to do so.

But now his hearts sank, because he probably would not, and should not, have his way.

"Martha, there's something I need to tell you."

* * *

 ***Whew.* Now _that_ was a harrowing adventure! ;-)**

 **Please don't forget to leave a review! They are my bread and butter!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I realized the other day that (Holy Rassilon!) this takes place one whole day after the Dalek debacle at Journey's End. I have been completely forgetting about and/or ignoring the fallout and recovery that would be occurring across the planet! So, I just send them gallivanting to the farmer's market in full swing, and no one even utters an** _ **oh no not again**_ **when there's** _ **another**_ **alien infiltration! Not to mention the fact that the Doctor just said goodbye to Donna yesterday! I did not mean to be this callous about it… honestly, I just forgot. That day was convenient from a storytelling perspective, because the Twelfth Doctor had to be relatively sure that she was engaged when he delivered the letter, so that she would not pursue a relationship with the Tenth Doctor… well, that backfired. In more ways than one! So, if any of you have been grinding on this not-so-little detail, then I offer my apologies!**

* * *

 **And this, mis amigos, is the final chapter. It might get confusing.** _ **Here**_ **is where we deal with the timelines, and the consequences of Twelve's letter, and Ten's seeming inability to leave things alone. There is a lot of talk and exposition, a lot of hemming and hawing and indecision… And Twelve comes back! The narrative switches back and forth a bit, between the worlds of Ten and Twelve… it's fairly unsubtle, and I don't think you'll have any trouble working out which Doctor is in the driver's seat. But still… be warned!**

 **I hope you like the way things end up. Time being the Wimey thing it is, it's difficult to discern what happens when the Doctor takes it into his own hands, but, well... decide for yourself! And Ten might seem a tad irresponsible here, but he's fallible, as are we all. By the same token, he is unbelievably clever at times, but is it really so strange to think that he might have a connection with future incarnations of himself?**

 **Anyway, when we left off, Ten and his brilliant Companion were coming down from their incredible high together, and partaking of a few fortifying nibbles...**

* * *

PART 5

The Doctor was lost in thought, because he'd seen a new side of Martha Jones today. And this delighted every part of him. Delighted, electrified, brought alive… To know the colours of her lustful side, how it manifested, how living and breathing a thing it actually was…

It made him shudder.

He always knew that she was not a shrinking violet, nor a passive partner. He always knew that she lived, loved and learned with her whole body, with every fibre of her being. But now, he knew how it actually looked and felt to have her seize _desire_ with both hands, and drink heartily.

And if he had his way, he would be seeing new sides to her every day, forever. New facets of those sides, both the exciting and the mundane, and he couldn't wait to do so.

But now his hearts sank, because he probably would not, and should not, have his way.

"Martha, there's something I need to tell you."

"Mm?" she asked, biting into a strawberry. This little gesture almost drove him to distraction.

But he martialed his faculties, and said, "Well, a minute ago, I said this all started because we realised we'd have to share a bed tonight."

"Yeah," she said, expectantly.

"But if you'll recall, it _really_ all started this morning, when a letter was dropped through the mail slot, into your flat."

She chuckled. "Oh yeah! God, was that just this morning? It feels like _ages_ ago."

"It does," he agreed. "Time is a funny thing."

"So I've learned," she said, suspicion tingeing her voice. "Doctor, what are you trying to tell me?"

He sighed heavily, took another deep breath, and stared at the small plate of food in his lap. "Well, about that letter…"

"Yes?"

"I didn't write it."

"What?" she cried out roughly, her voice penetrating the air in the room like a razor. In her shock, she got to her feet reflexively, knocking over the cup of wine that had been sitting on the night table. It fell to the floor, grotesquely splashing the red liquid onto the light-coloured carpet, which immediately began to soak it up. "What do you mean _you didn't write it?_ So, this whole day – the _pretending to be a couple,_ the farmer's market, the whole speech about being coy…"

The Doctor got to his feet in response, and began to move toward the bathroom. "No."

"The park, the door, the _desk_ and the _shower_! It's all been a lie?"

"No, it hasn't been a lie. None of it has been a lie," he said, surprisingly calmly. He disappeared into the bathroom for a moment, and emerged with a stack of three hand-towels. He threw two of them on the floor, on top of the wine spatter.

"How can you say that? This entire thing hinges upon the fact that…" she stopped for a moment, and absently watched him, on his knees, pressing his hands into the towels, allowing the crimson liquid to soak into the pristine white fabric. She stopped, swallowed hard, as tears came to the surface. She forced them into retreat, and spoke again. "In the letter, you said… I thought…"

"I know," he said, not looking at her.

"You said you wrote it!" she shouted, stomping her foot on the floor. "So silly me, I thought that meant that what was in the letter was true! That you…" she swallowed hard again, and forced herself to say the words. "…love me."

"I do," he said, looking up at her now. He stood, and gazed at her sadly. "I do love you."

"So… what the hell? How can I believe… I don't underst... How… what? What the hell, Doctor?"

"Martha…"

"A love letter appeared just… what? Out of nowhere?"

"Not out of nowhere, no."

"And you just took credit for it? Use it to get me to…" she said, gesturing to the desk, where the pen cup was still on its side, and the box of tea bags was still on the floor, both with their contents spilling out, due to the adventure they'd had so recently on that very piece of furniture.

"No," he said, firmly. Then, exasperation creeped into his voice. "God, no. Just listen."

She took a step back from him, and crossed her arms defensively over her chest. "Well, if you didn't write it, who did? Someone who has practised your handwriting. Someone who has your voice down cold. Because Doctor, I know you well, and it convinced me. It was a bloody good forgery!"

"Martha, would you stop?"

"Or, maybe it wasn't that good, and it was just telling me what I wanted, so I went for it…"

"Martha! Let me explain!"

She stopped short. "Fine. Explain. Dazzle me." She stood, staring at him with a mixture of contempt and sadness.

He took a deep breath. "Okay, I said I didn't write it," he said. "But only because I haven't written it _yet_."

"Excuse me? That's… insane," she said, because she was angry, confused, and wasn't sure what else to say.

He rolled his eyes, knowing it would piss her off, but he couldn't stop himself. "Oh, come on!" he practically shouted at her. "Is it, really? Insane? Think it through, Martha! Didn't you just claim, five seconds ago, that you know me well? I'm a _time traveller,_ or have you forgotten?"

"No, I haven't forgotten! How could I?"

"I don't know!" he spat. "You've seen first-hand that things don't always happen to me in the right order. Don't you remember Sally Sparrow?"

She exhaled sharply with exasperation, shifted her weight to the other hip, and said, "Okay. Things don't happen in the right order. Keep talking."

"I just told you," he said. "I haven't written it yet. At some point in the future, I must decide that you need to know how I feel, and you need to know it… now-ish."

She shut her eyes tight. "A future version of you wrote the letter?"

"Yes," he said. "I have no idea how far in the future, and I don't know what prompts it. But I do know that… well, everything in the letter is absolutely on-point."

"So, without the letter from the future having been delivered today, without your knowledge, you were just going to move on with your life, and never tell me any of this?"

"Yeah," he admitted, shrugging. "I thought I'd lost my chance. I thought I'd been too much of a coward, and let the moment slip away. I thought our time had passed. And I thought you were engaged!"

She groaned. "Oh, God."

"And then came the Jaunoeil, and it mucked everything about," he said. "Suddenly, we found ourselves in close-quarters once again, and…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," she told him, waving away this particular bit of his explication. "Well, what was all that rubbish about _taking stock_ , even before Julie was attacked?"

He sighed. "I dunno," he admitted, wandering away, into a pace, and massaging the muscles of his neck, as he did when he felt stymied. "I guess I just wanted to be selfish, and see how things would play out."

"I'm not a Time Lord, and even I know you're playing with fire, Doctor."

He chuckled, because the phrase _playing with fire_ had popped into his head, more than once today.

"Yeah, I know. I guess, I just felt defeated, and... well, you know I don't do defeat well. I reckoned, there had to be a way. I thought that both of us could be convinced to give up just _a little bit_ of our freedoms, in order to be together. Isn't that what being in a relationship is, anyway? At least, partly?"

"Yeah, it is."

"I'd had some time to reflect, on the drive down from London, and I'd convinced myself that it might not be the worst thing in the world, to just _stay put_ in London part-time, and let you live your life, with me in it. And in exchange, I thought you'd maybe agree to delegate one or two of your responsibilities at UNIT, so that we could travel some."

"Compromise."

"Yeah. That's the name of the game."

A long silence ensued, during which, her face was totally inscrutable. The Doctor had no idea what would come out of her mouth next. She sat down on the edge of the bed, contemplatively.

Well, actually, he did have _some_ idea.

"Why didn't _you_ tell me, Doctor? Why didn't _you_ say something, so that your older self wouldn't have to do it for you?"

"That year we were together?"

"Yes."

He groaned, and sat down beside her. "I just… _felt_ so much, Martha, and I couldn't tell you about it. It was too hard. I wouldn't have even known where to begin. There was too much rubbish in the way, and the risk was too great."

"When you say _too much rubbish in the way,_ do you mean Rose?"

"Well, other things, as well. But… mostly her, yeah."

"Great."

He shrugged. "Sorry. Broken heart, self-loathing, fear…"

"Okay," she said, cutting him off.

"I just thought I'd have all the time in the world, and then Harold Saxon came to power, and unleashed hell on Earth, and I lost my chance. By the time the dust settled, you had walked the planet and…"

"I came back different," she said, softly, putting her hand on his thigh. "Okay. I guess, all of this was in the letter."

There was another longer-than-average pause, until the Doctor spoke. "I don't know what else to say, except, something in the future causes me to think that the best course of action is to tell you everything, but do it at a time when you are occupied with someone else. I think that's why I must've chosen today."

She nodded along. "You saw the ring on my finger yesterday, and thought that today, I wouldn't be free to bother you."

"Not bother," he said. "Never bother."

"So… Future You never intended for _you_ to be involved."

"Exactly."

"Because, if you get involved, and then _we_ get involved, things that happen between today, and whenever _he_ delivers the letter… it all changes, in ways that are impossible to know."

"Yes."

"And yet, you're involved now."

"I am."

"And we…" she muttered, looking at him with worried eyes, and gesturing toward the desk.

"Yeah, we did."

"And all the while, you knew? This whole day, you've known that you're not supposed to be here? That you're _supposed_ to leave me alone, and let me get on with my life?"

"Well, that was the original plan," he said. "We were just going to have our one day together, and then go our separate ways, remember? It just happened to go awry. Seems to happen to me a lot."

"But…" she practically whined. "You let me drape myself all over you in the park. You had sex with me! Premediated sex! How wise was that?"

He sighed, with a weak smile. "Are you asking me why I ignored _wisdom,_ and did those things anyway?"

"No. I mean, yeah. But no. I know the answer. You're human. Or at least, close enough. In the way that counts."

He nodded. "I'm oh-so-human, in that respect. I have my weaknesses. I try, but I fail quite frequently, at valiance. I have my id. I have the little voice in my head telling me that even _my_ life is too short not to seize the day. I am imperfect. Wildly imperfect, as a matter of fact. And I am, at the root of all this…" he took a deep breath, then let it out heavily. "…a man in love. There's only so much I can do."

"So, what's going to happen now?"

"I don't know. It depends how tomorrow plays out. I reckon that us just having an amazing shag in this room isn't going to alter the course of history."

"But what about our lives?" she asked, her voice threatening to break.

"It doesn't have to alter the course of our lives, either," he said, rather sadly. "It could, if we so chose. And today, right here and now, I really _really_ want it to."

"Me too."

"The course of my life has been so _banal_ for so long," he sighed. "There have been so many days unseized, so much love undeclared, so many safer options opted-for… I could do with a bit of fire on the inside. A bit of you."

"Again with the fire," she whispered, without looking up at him.

"I won't deny it's dangerous. But just as easily, tonight could simply be a beautiful moment, to be looked upon fondly, never changing future decisions that we make."

"Sounds sensible," she said, and then her voice broke. "But I can't bear to think of that."

"I know," he muttered, bitterly. "It's rubbish."

"So what the hell do we do? Could we live with ourselves, or each other, either way?" Tears fell now.

He wiped them away. "Time will tell, Martha. It just won't tell us tonight. I'm sorry I put you in this position."

"So, you're putting it on _me_ to choose?"

"Not necessarily," he said. "And anyway, no forever-decisions can be made tonight."

She contemplated for a few moments, then took his hand. "So, if that's true, and if our _fire_ in this room isn't going to cause a paradox, then we could…"

"We could burn the building down, if we want," he smirked.

* * *

Alas, the inn did not succumb to flames, but the occupants of one particular room certainly did. For most of the night, they flared brightly, by turns, with joy and sorrow, both of which made the conflagration all the more destructive.

Destructive, and irresistible.

The bed was in total chaos – the fitted sheet had snapped off, the top sheet had become untucked and twisted, and the comforter had long-since been discarded – when, around 1:00 a.m. Martha got up, put on a robe, grabbed the stethoscope and sphygmomanometer, and padded through the inn, and down the private stairs in the back of the building. She knocked softly on the door of Ward and Julie's downstairs flat, and Ward conducted her through to the guest room, where Julie was still asleep, right where she and the Doctor had left her. While the lady slumbered, Martha took a set of vitals, including, of course, her blood pressure. As she had hoped and suspected, it had risen, and was hovering now just below normal.

"That's good, isn't it?" asked Ward.

"It's good," she said. "It means there's little chance of permanent brain damage."

He sighed. "That's a relief."

"But if you'll come back to London with us tomorrow, we'll get her into UNIT for an MRI, just to be safe."

"Okay," he said.

"And I'll come back down in about three hours, just to make sure that the blood pressure levels out at normal, and doesn't continue to rise, after that," she promised.

"Okay," he repeated. "I'll just leave the front door unlocked."

"Right. The technicians arrive at 7:00, so why don't we plan on getting on the road by 5:30," she said.

Ward agreed, and with that, Martha returned to their quarters. When she arrived, she found that the Doctor had put the entire room back together. The food was put away, the pens and tea bags on the desk had been replaced in their proper containers, and the bedclothes had been reassembled, the top neatly turned-down, hotel-style. The wine-soaked towels had been removed from the floor, and even the stain itself was just a mild discolouration now. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, but the bathroom door was shut, and the light was on.

All the evidence of their ardent lovemaking had been practically erased, and the room looked as though it was ready for new occupants to come in and make their own memories here.

She heard rustling in the bathroom, water running and a few moments later, the Doctor stepped out into the room. "How is she?"

"Fine," Martha said. "BP is 110 over 75."

"That's good news," he said. "So why are you frowning?"

She gestured around the room.

"What?" he asked.

"It looks like you've made a decision," she told him.

"About what?"

"You put everything back the way it was supposed to be," she said. "You readied the room to move on without us."

"Are you serious?"

She shrugged. "When I left, the place was a disaster, because we'd made it a disaster."

Yes, in our violently conflicted passion," he commented, feigning seriousness. He was moving toward her with a subtle, wicked smile.

"And now, it's all back to normal, as though our _activities_ didn't even make an impression upon it. It just feels like…"

"… like I'm projecting upon this room, my choice to put our lives back to normal, as though our _activities_ didn't make an impression upon them?"

"Yeah."

He was now standing close enough, that she could smell the lavender-scented soap he had just used to wash his hands. "That's bonkers," he said to her.

"Is it?"

"Certifiably. But if it bothers you, then let's muss it all up again," he said. And he untied her robe and pushed it off her shoulders, letting it drop unsubtly to the floor. He did the same with his own. "Oh no. How messy are we."

* * *

The moment the crisp envelope left the Doctor's long, weathered fingers, he knew he'd been wrong.

Even before he heard the letter land on the floor of Martha Jones' foyer, he knew. _Martha and Tom Milligan broke up two and a half weeks ago._ He knew it, because he remembered. She was free to call – and she would. And _he_ was free to answer – and he would.

They were free to celebrate with (relative) abandon. And they definitely would.

"Oh dear, oh dear," he whispered to himself with his signature scowl, as he backed away from her front door, turned and walked back down the block to where the TARDIS was parked.

He'd set it down a street away, so as not to risk having her hear the gears, because he was being careful. He snickered at that word, careful. Ten seconds ago, he'd thought _careful_ was a thing. Now _careful_ seemed a farce. How could one ever be _careful_ enough, when changing the past? When making assumptions about people's feelings, actions, intentions?

The answer was: one could never.

And now, in this moment, the man who could go anywhere in time and space, who understood the cosmos better than any living being and had spent more total time on this planet than any of its natives ever would, felt _unwelcome_. On this, a London street, on a Sunday in 2008, the Doctor seemed not to belong. He had the irrational fear of being _caught_. By whom? At what? By Martha? By his younger self? At daring to exist here? At daring to try to make things better?

Well, yes.

He stared diffidently down at his bulbous-toed Doc Martens, as he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and making his way back to the TARDIS.

He had to concentrate, because his mind was suddenly being flooded with memories, brand-new realities, and it was tempting to sit on a nearby stoop with his head in his hands, and simply abide the resultant headache.

The Doctor now stood (metaphorically) at the epicentre of a time sweep. Delivering that letter today could now potentially mean a ripple effect over the course of about half of his existence – eight hundred years' time… who knew how long it would take for it all to reconcile within his brain and gut, and across the vortex?

For now, he stumbled into the TARDIS, and leaned on the console, and let himself be inundated. Two time-streams attacked him at once, one of which involved sunny, revelatory day in Hampshire and a cracking, spectacular night in an inn with Martha Jones. The other time-stream involved the Ponds, Clara Oswald and a certain harmony with River Song. It was confusing, and as the man at the epicentre, he knew, he would see both for a while, before the new "truth" began to right itself, eventually eclipsing what he knew to be his history, as of today.

Martha was a formidable woman – extraordinary in every way. She was brilliant and stunning, practical yet hot-blooded, and he was looking forward to whatever other memories of her were about to manifest, unbidden. More time with her, and _quality_ time with her, was certainly a gift. And he'd achieved closure with "twentysomething" Martha, as he had aimed to do – this was absolutely worth a big risk.

But what would be the price of this particular little miscalculation? Needing closure, and choosing this day for it… would it cost him Amy? Clara? Without Amy in his life, what would become of Melody/River? Without Clara, how could he hope to survive his run-in with Dr. Simeon? That is, if such a thing were now to occur. What would become of the time he spent with Good Queen Bess, and subsequently, with himself, as he re-wrote his own involvement in the destruction of Gallifrey? Would _that_ rewritten time-stream now unravel, or rewrite itself again, because of _this_ rewritten time-stream?

Worse yet, would it mean war breaks out at Trenzalore, because he's not there to stop it? His stomach fell to the floor. If _that_ were the case, he might very well cease to exist in the next day or two! Because, without his stint in the Town Called Christmas, he'd never have received a new regeneration cycle, and he would have died there beneath the clock tower, whilst shouting at Daleks in the sky. And it would have been forever.

Which would mean, he'd never have lived to follow that bus in to the river in Berlin, nor to call Martha Jones for help, nor to have tea with her, and tell her about his feelings all those years ago, nor to deliver the letter…

"How charming," he muttered to himself. "I might've just caused a paradox."

Visions of himself, the TARDIS and the time vortex collapsing in on itself now filled his mind.

Though, perhaps he was getting ahead of himself. At the moment, all he knew was that his decision had led to a tryst for himself and Martha, that he had never intended. Beyond that, time would tell…

"Well, assuming the universe still exists in a day, or a week, or whatever…" he said aloud. He then activated some simple recording equipment on the console, and spoke into it.

"As I remember it, here is the story of my life, after Martha Jones, Mickey Smith and Jack Harkness walked away from the TARDIS in a park, after a deeply unsettling Dalek debacle in 2008."

He went on to recount spending a year or two alone, dealing with the Cyber King, accidentally going through a portal to San Helios… eventually regenerating. Immediately, he met Amelia Pond, then Rory Williams, then he re-met River Song, then Clara Oswald (well, he'd really met Oswin first, hadn't he?). Rewriting the end of the Time War, Trenzalore, the Town Called Christmas… then another regeneration.

He told the story of Berlin, the bus, Martha's help, and how he felt after spending the afternoon with her, how he felt a deep desire to reassure her in her younger state, that she had been loved and desired. He told the story of writing and delivering the letter…

"And now, here are the questions I have," he said into the recording.

* * *

At 5:30 on Monday morning, the Doctor placed two grocery sacks into the trunk of Martha's car, beside a vegetable crate containing pieces of Ward's laptop computer that had gone haywire the day before. Then he crawled into the passenger's seat and strapped himself in. Martha drove the car round back of the inn, and found Ward and Julie readying to leave, as well.

"All right, you two?" the Doctor asked, rolling down the window.

"Yeah," Ward said. "See you in an hour and a half, or so?"

"Do you navigate London relatively well?" the Doctor wondered.

"Well enough to get to the Tower," Ward answered.

"Actually, you're going to want to park somewhere near the Tower Hill Tube station," Martha said. "UNIT will reimburse you for the cost or fine – just park wherever you can find space. Then, go down onto the Circle Line platform, bound for Liverpool Street, and we'll meet you there."

"We don't get on the Tube?"

"No," she answered. "There's a hidden door in the station that will take you us into UNIT HQ, but you'll need me, and my cardkey, to get through."

"Okay," said Ward. "Got it."

"How's Julie?"

"Fine," he said. "Surly. She doesn't understand why any of this is necessary."

"Well, maybe she doesn't need to understand, she just needs to come," Martha said.

"My sentiments exactly," Ward told her.

And with that, the four of them hopped onto the Motorway, in two cars, and watched the sun rise over Britain, before arriving in London, ninety minutes later. Martha and the Doctor made it to the platform inside Tower Hill station a bit before Ward and Julie. But, once they were all assembled there, they went through a perception-filtered door, and walked through a quarter mile of tunnel before reaching the guarded gate of the inner-sanctum of UNIT.

"Are you sure you don't want me to call for a golf cart?" Martha asked, after they'd been walking for a minute or so.

"I'm fine," Julie snapped.

The med bay had been open only for a few minutes when they arrived, and Martha prepped Julie for her MRI. A technician ran the machine under Martha's supervision, and Martha interpreted the results.

Her brain was fine. There was no damage. Her blood pressure was relatively steady, averaging at 125/81. After a scan, under the Doctor's supervision, meant to detect several different types of alien presence, Julie was given a clean bill of health.

"The Jaunoeil alien is gone," the Doctor told her, taking her hand, helping her down off the examination table, and beginning to pull suction cups from her head. "They have not left any beacons within you, nor any residue from their communication infiltration."

"Beacons?"

"Yeah, like… an internet bookmarker. So they could find you again. Marking you as a past and potential host."

"I didn't even know that was a possibility."

"Well, now, it's not," he said.

"Jesus," she muttered.

"It's like I told Martha, the Jaunoeil are sneaky, they're scavengers, but they're not interested in hurting anyone. It was just possible that they'd calibrated their communiqué emission so as to be tolerable to a human brain," he told her.

"Seriously?"

"Oh yes," he answered. "I'm satisfied that you're clean. You're free to go about your life."

He carefully untangled a wire from her hair at the nape of her neck, turned and opened a cabinet containing her clothes, and handed them to her.

She smiled weakly, and said, "Thanks. This is… so weird."

"No argument here," he said, leaving the room, to give her privacy. "I'll be right outside. Martha and I will walk you two back to your car, as soon as you're ready. You know, you two should really consider staying in London a few days. It's a great town. I spend a lot of time here, myself."

* * *

By noon, Martha and the Doctor were stepping through her front door, exhausted.

"Tea?" she asked.

"Yes, thanks," he told her, picking the post up off the floor. He set it down on a credenza near the door. "Extra strong, if you can manage it."

"Gunpowder," she said pulling a charcoal-grey metal box from the cupboard, as he entered the kitchen.

"Perfect," he said.

And then he sat down on a bar stool, and watched her fill the kettle with water, and place it on the stove.

Once the kettle was on, she stood across from him, smiled weakly, and sighed.

"I had Agent Breadworth run a second set of diagnostics on Ward's computer… what's left of it. You know, just for a second opinion."

"A second opinion. As any good doctor would welcome," she commented. "And?"

"No alien residue there, either."

"Good," she said. "Although, it's not like he can ever use that machine again anyhow."

He shrugged. "I could put it back together for him."

"Are you going to?"

"If he wants," the Doctor said. "But it was a piece of equipment that he used for quite a successful business. My guess is that it's insured. It would be more efficient for him to get a newer one, and then I can help him transfer data."

The kettle screamed after a few minutes, and they took their tea in the breakfast nook, by the front window – both white (though, slightly less-white than usual) with no sugar. The Doctor stared out through the glass, into the garden, and Martha searched his face.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said, cautiously.

"Just thinking about Julie," he said. "And the Jaunoeil. There are other species out there with roughly the same M.O. Maybe we should look into them. You know, track their communications lines, make sure they're not mucking about with this planet, or any other."

"We?" she asked.

He gave her an exhausted smile. "Sure. Why not _we?_ "

"Come on, Doctor."

"Martha, nothing's coming into focus for me right now," he said. "And it might be a while before it does."

"So our best course of action is to throw caution to the wind?"

"I didn't say that."

"What if it never _comes into focus_?"

"It will."

"And until then, we can just do whatever we want to?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he told her, resting his chin in one hand.

"That is _not_ reassuring, Doctor."

"Well, it's like I said. I reckon that what we did last night – and this morning - isn't going to alter the course of history. And if we so choose, it doesn't have to alter the course of our lives."

"Right," she said, expectantly, able to tell from the timbre of his voice that there were more thoughts coming.

"And now I'm thinking about it, what we do tonight doesn't have to alter the course of anything either. Or tomorrow, or the next day."

She squinted. "I see. You're saying we don't have to decide today."

"I reckon we don't. Because, I said last night, this could all be a beautiful moment in our lives, to be looked upon fondly, never changing future decisions that we make. Who's to say that can't be true, even if we let this thing continue for weeks? Months?"

"I don't know who's to say, Doctor," she chuckled. "That's really your department."

"Nothing is in focus, Martha. And that's… good? I think. For now. Maybe sometime soon, the Time Lord in me will know what to do, whether to halt us in our tracks, or… But at the moment, I just don't have enough information. Right now, I'm wondering, why should we say goodbye, when it's possible that the coming months will have no major effect on what happens between now, and the day I write that letter? Why should a few months out of our lives necessarily be any different than one night?"

She looked at him with worry, and said, "Playing with fire," echoing her words from the night before.

* * *

But alas, where questions of time and consequences were concerned, a human should always defer to a Time Lord, and so, she did not fight it. He said there were no rumblings in his guts when he thought of spending more time with her, and she had no choice but to believe him.

And that is why, when he suggested that they go to the local grocery for some ingredients, and have the 'flirty frolic' in the kitchen that they'd had to postpone from the night before, she agreed, without hesitation. They made spinach-crab-ricotta raviolis from scratch, with some baked acorn squash. They began drinking wine as they began cooking, and opened a second bottle upon setting the meal on the table. By the time they opened up the container of lemon-vanilla gelato for dessert, they were in no mood to be feeling _qualms_ about moving forward with the night, with their relationship, with what their bodies were telling them to do…

Around 2:00 a.m., the Doctor woke in Martha's bed, without really knowing what had startled his eyes open. He studied the extraordinary woman slumbering beside him, and something, at last, became clear:

At some point in the future, the he must have come into contact with Martha Jones again, for some reason (perhaps an older, wiser, slightly more harried Martha Jones), and they must have a kind of heart-to-hearts. He must have regrets about how he'd treated her, about how he'd allowed her to walk away from him three times without telling her how he'd felt. He must feel that Martha, young Martha, deserves to know.

And _there_ is where the whole thing falls apart. Because now, with the way things had gone, there was no reason for Future-Doctor to feel any impetus to write and deliver that letter. That incident in the future will never take place now, at least, not as it had. It was the timey-wimey catalyst for all of this, which now meant that the catalyst could not exist.

"Ugh, time travel," he sighed, and stroked Martha's sleeping head. "I guess I'll just have to _remember_ to deliver that letter someday. Just wish I knew _when_."

* * *

Several weeks had passed almost completely sleeplessly, since delivering the letter to Martha Jones' flat in 2008. Images had formed and reformed within his mind, memories had melted away, and then returned. Timelines had gelled, melded, then combined and recombined…

Then, one morning, after the first full night's sleep he'd had in a while, he woke up feeling refreshed, relieved, unencumbered (well, as unencumbered as a Time Lord could ever expect to be), by the laws of time and the universe. He felt _normal_ , as though it was just another day in the life. He looked in the mirror, not really knowing what he might see. This happened to him from time to time, more and more as the years passed – sometimes he could not remember which face he was in now. Although, today, he knew that he would find curly grey hair and a cross-looking brow, he just wasn't sure if he would also see the purple bags that had formed under his eyes over the past couple of weeks, and/or the grey pallor in his face. Or, his personal favourite, the droopy-eyed, slack-jawed dullard look that had set in from lack of sleep.

But he saw none of these things. His large, bluish-grey eyes were clear, his skin looked peachy and olive, just the way it should, and when he smiled at himself, he saw that old mischief shining through. And weirdly, he couldn't _quite_ remember what had caused him so much grief over the past few weeks.

He reckoned it was something to do with Martha Jones. She'd been on his mind a lot lately… though that was nothing new. Part of him still pined for her, and always would. Given the years they'd spent together, all they'd been through and shared, well, it was only natural. And it was expected and normal, that a man should feel a pull, the weight of wistfulness and desire, perhaps, when thinking of a past love. But _centuries_ had passed, and just the memory of Martha no longer had the power to keep him up nights. So, what was it?

He reckoned, it didn't matter. In the end, there were no rumblings in his Time Lord gut, and all seemed right with the universe, at least until the next distress call.

"Case in point," he said aloud, noticing an orange light on the console, blinking for attention. He pushed the button, and fully expected to hear a message from some lonely planet, under fire from some neighbouring thugs, but instead, he heard his own voice.

" _As I remember it,"_ the recording said, _"Here is the story of my life, after Martha Jones, Mickey Smith and Jack Harkness walked away from the TARDIS in a park, after a deeply unsettling Dalek debacle in 2008."_

And now that he was listening to it, he remembered it.

The recording recounted his year or two spent alone, dealing with the Cyber King, accidentally going though a portal to San Helios… eventually regenerating. Immediately, he met Amelia Pond, then Rory Williams, then re-met River Song, then Clara Oswald. Rewriting the end of the Time War, Trenzalore, the Town Called Christmas… then another regeneration.

Then, it told the story of Berlin, and a disappearing bus, asking for Martha's help, and how he felt a deep desire to reassure her in her younger state, that she had been loved and desired. He told the story of writing and delivering the letter…

"Whoa," he said, to no-one, stopping the recording. "Okay, I see."

One timeline had dissolved, and another had re-formed, and he'd been at the epicentre, and could not retain the former. He supposed that now he was feeling himself again, there was no harm in knowing what, if anything, he'd lost from the "old" timeline.

And actually, he wasn't sure what he'd lost, in the end, because it all sounded so familiar. He was damn sure, though, of something he'd gained. There was a huge, gaping hole in his life, according to the recording. The "old" timeline didn't have _her_ in it.

As the recording stated, today, he did remember watching Martha, Mickey and Jack walk away together into a park, and he certainly remembered having to say a horrible goodbye to Donna Noble after that. But the crucial thing missing was the call, out of the blue, from Martha the next day, that had led them to Hampshire, and into a gorgeous, absolutely _scorching_ night together in a B&B in Petersfield. Not to mention the decade and a half (or so) that had followed, after the Doctor had realised that they didn't have to "decide right now" whether being together was a good idea or not… he'd reckoned that at some point, Time and Space would tell him when to let go.

But they waited _years_ for that to happen. And so, they had enjoyed just over fourteen years of love, companionship, sex, laughs, exploration and travel. During that period, she'd split her time between the TARDIS and UNIT, and worked no longer as the Chief Medical Officer, but as a Senior Liaison to Operation Blue Sky (the code-name for the Doctor), a title drummed-up especially for her by Colonel Mace, with first consultation rights in medical.

He'd seen her though the deaths of her mother, three grandparents and a niece, plus several debacles between UNIT and Sontarans, UNIT and the Gressing Elhounds, UNIT and bloody Whitehall.

He had also assisted her in devising a regimen to ward off leukaemia, once it was noticed within UNIT that Martha had hyped-up lymphocytes, as a result of travelling through Time and Space. She'd known about the phenomenon because of some work she'd done with Captain Jack and the wacky gang at Torchwood, back in her Tom Milligan days. It kept her from contracting infectious and/or airborne diseases with which she came into contact, all across the cosmos, but when lymphocytes morph, and then divide, there is a risk of leukaemia. So, the two of them had developed a monthly injection, and stayed true to UNIT's request that she get checked out specifically for symptoms of leukaemia, every sixteen weeks.

And one day, a day that physically _hurt_ to think of, Martha had stayed in London for her sixteen-week test, and he'd decided to flit off to Mars, just for a laugh. He'd wound up, in his infernal arrogance, derailing a fixed point in time, and being called to answer for it by the Ood. There had been signs for a long while that death was, once again, imminent, and that somehow, he was cheating on his regeneration cycle this time round – he didn't really know what that meant. But that day, it became clear, this life was coming to an end.

He was on his way to fight the Master, and the thought of exposing Martha to that particular danger did not sit well with him… and neither did putting her through a regeneration, after fourteen years together. And so, he'd gone back to London to catch her, just after her sixteen-week screening, and told her, tearfully, where he was headed. Just as tearfully, she informed him that two of UNIT's oncologists had agreed that if she travelled any more in the TARDIS, she would definitely develop leukaemia… and based on the test results, and what she had seen under the microscope, she was inclined to agree.

Life, as they knew it, was over.

They stalled for a few days, of course, doing what they had done back in 2008, when they kept saying "we don't have to decide today." But on a Thursday afternoon, the Doctor spotted a Zygon in a pastry shop in Soho, and had no choice but to follow it… that was it. That was the sign. _That_ was Time and Space telling them to let go, at last.

The Zygon led him to a base, which led him to a painting, which led him to realise that there was a threat happening in Elizabethan England, which led him straight to Hatfield House… and thus, he took a detour on the way to regeneration. And he hated to think on that period, but… well, it was what it was. The Crown might have been in collusion with the Zygons, so he'd had to get close to Elizabeth somehow… and blimey, who knew she was such a firecracker?

Then came _two_ highly traumatic revisitings of the Time War… and he regenerated.

The impact of the regeneration had caused the TARDIS to crash in Leadworth, where he met seven-year-old Amelia Pond, then twenty-one-year-old Amy Pond, then Rory Williams, then re-met River Song, then Clara Oswald. There was Trenzalore, the Town Called Christmas, and thank Heaven Clara had been there to beg for a new regeneration cycle… because here he was. And it was a good thing, too, because about four weeks back, an alert had come through the TARDIS' console, "Write Martha a letter."

"Ah," he said, with a soft smile. That day was when he'd begun to feel wonky, when he'd stopped sleeping, when he'd become despondent about timelines and memories and…

But today, he felt fine. It seemed as though he'd been given a gift today, somehow.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope you found this engaging and satisfying. It's a bit of an indulgence for me…**

 **I think that this all comes from my having felt for a long time that Ten and Martha (or any Doctor and any Companion) could, hypothetically, have a longer run together, without changing anything major. If the Ponds, River and Clara** _ **had**_ **to happen in the Doctor's life, because of the fates or fixed points or whatever, then they would… just** _ **later.**_ **I guess I didn't realize until now how much I've been wanting to really explore that idea.**

 **A lot of my stories end with Martha and Ten living "happily ever after," which we know can't really happen because he's just going to outlive her – period. But they can live sort of "happily indefinitely after," until** _ **something**_ **stops them, and from there, the Doctor can get on with his life as we know it. When I started this story, it was about Twelve and the letter, and Ten and the B &B. It became something more than that…**

… **seems to happen to me a lot. Again, thanks for reading!**

 **Don't forget to leave a review – it would make my day!**


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